Jordan Daily – Canadian photojournalist Valerie Zink has resigned from Reuters after eight years, denouncing the news agency’s coverage of Gaza as a “betrayal of journalists” and accusing it of “justifying and enabling” the killing of 245 media workers in the enclave.
“It has become impossible for me to maintain a relationship with Reuters given its role in enabling the systematic assassination of 245 journalists in Gaza,” Zink wrote Tuesday on the US-based platform X.
Zink, who has worked as a Reuters stringer with her photographs published in outlets including The New York Times and Al-Jazeera, sharply criticized the agency’s reporting after the killing of Palestinian journalist Anas al-Sharif and his colleagues on August 10.
She accused Reuters of amplifying Israel’s “entirely baseless claim” that al-Sharif was a Hamas operative—“one of countless lies that outlets like Reuters have dutifully repeated and dignified,” she said.
“I have valued the work I did with Reuters over the past eight years, but I can no longer wear this press pass without deep shame and grief,” Zink added.
She stressed that Reuters’ willingness to echo Israeli propaganda had not protected its own staff from Israel’s attacks.
Reflecting on the courage of Gaza’s reporters, Zink said: “I don’t know what it means to begin to honor the sacrifice of journalists in Gaza—the bravest and best to ever live—but I will direct whatever contributions I can offer with that front of mind. I owe my colleagues in Palestine at least this much, and so much more.”
Zink also referred to the killing of six journalists, including Reuters cameraman Hossam al-Masri, in Israel’s strike on Monday on the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis. She described it as a “double tap” attack: bombing a civilian site such as a hospital or school, then striking again once medics, rescue workers, and journalists arrive.
Citing journalist Jeremy Scahill, she said Western media—from The New York Times to Reuters—had acted as “a conveyor belt for Israeli propaganda,” sanitizing war crimes, dehumanizing victims, and abandoning both their colleagues and basic journalistic ethics.
By repeating “Israel’s genocidal fabrications” without scrutiny, Zink argued, Western outlets have helped create the conditions for more journalists to be killed in Gaza in two years than in many other major global conflicts combined.
The killing of six more media workers in Khan Yunis brought the total number of Palestinian journalists killed since October 2023 to at least 246.
Since October 2023, Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 62,700 Palestinians, devastated the enclave, and pushed its population into famine.
In November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice over its war on Gaza.
Palestine Chronicle
