Shireen Abu Akleh, and what it took to be namedOne name, six papers, ten weeks · May to September 2022
May to July 2022
Shireen Abu Akleh, and what it took to be named
The section above counts how rarely an ordinary Palestinian is named in these clippings. Here is the exception, and it is worth reading for what it took.
Shireen Abu Akleh was shot in the head in Jenin on 11 May 2022. She was fifty-one, a reporter for twenty-five years, and an American citizen. Over the next ten weeks her name was printed in New Jersey, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Wisconsin and Montana. Six papers over ten weeks, and the account moves the whole time: a killing nobody will attribute, then stray Palestinian fire, then an Israeli army conceding a “high possibility” and opening no criminal case.
Al Jazeera reporter killed during an Israeli raid in West Bank
The morning after. The Israeli military initially suggested that Abu Akleh might have been killed by stray fire from Palestinians
— and the defense minister, the same evening: We are trying to figure out exactly what happened… I don’t have final conclusions.
The Star-Ledger
Israeli police beat pallbearers at Al Jazeera journalist’s funeral
Two services, two papers, one day. The Associated Press: causing them to briefly drop the casket in a shocking start to a procession that turned into perhaps the largest display of Palestinian nationalism in Jerusalem in a generation
. Her brother Tony said the scenes prove that Shireen’s reports and honest words … had a powerful impact.
Daily Herald · Dickinson Press
Palestinians say journalist killed by Israeli forces
The Palestinian attorney general: The only shooting was by the occupation forces, with the aim of killing
. The Israeli chief of staff, the same day: No soldier fired intentionally at a journalist. We investigated that. We checked it.
The Philadelphia Inquirer
U.N. agency says Israeli troops killed journalist
The United Nations found the shots came from Israeli forces and that she was not struck from indiscriminate firing by armed Palestinians, as initially claimed by Israeli authorities
. The photograph beside it is her face on a wall in Bethlehem, next to George Floyd. The Philadelphia Inquirer
US: Israeli fire likely killed reporter; no final conclusion
The State Department: likely fired from an Israeli position, but too badly damaged to reach an absolute determination
and no reason to believe
she was deliberately targeted. An Israeli rights group called it whitewash
. The Billings Gazette
The account moved in print over ten weeks: stray fire from Palestinians, then Israeli fire, then likely Israeli fire and no conclusion about intent. Every stage is in this archive because every stage was printed.
What the naming section measures is not whether American papers can name a Palestinian. It is what a Palestinian has to be before they do.