A survey of coverage from Sunday October 8, 2023 to Sunday October 5, 2025 reveals that three of the majorSunday morning news shows, NBC’s Meet the Press, ABC’s This Week With George Stephanopoulos, and CNN’s State of the Union with Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, in dozens of segments discussing Gaza over 315 episodes total, not once did any of the bookers, producers or hosts of these programs see fit to interview a single Palestinian or Palestinian-American. These same outlets did, while covering Gaza, manage to include 55 appearances by U.S government officials and 16 Israeli officials or spokespeople for Israeli captives, including a total of four interviews with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
If CBS’s Face The Nation is included, the breakdown on appearances is one by a Palestinian guest, 24 by Israeli guests, five by Netanyahu and 84 by U.S. officials.
It’s a noteworthy omission given that the so-called “war in Gaza” has killed at least 65,000 Palestinians, including over 19,000 children (the number is almost certainly much, much higher), and has resulted in the maiming of thousands of Palestinian children, mass starvation, mass spread of disease and unquantifiable trauma for the already besieged and occupied population. The United States has directly armed, funded, provided military and diplomatic support for the killing — so U.S. residents have a stake in knowing what their support is leading to, and what voices are represented in influential political TV shows in the U.S. is of tremendous importance. As I noted last year, the Sunday shows don’t garner the blockbuster ratings but they do still wield major influence over those who matter: White House officials, lawmakers, corporate executives and media editors. They set the tone and agenda for Washington and signal to elites and the institutions they run which issues matter. And based on who has been allowed to speak on these shows, the agenda advanced has routinely promoted this genocide without even a token word from those on the receiving end of the genocide.
Despite hearing from no Palestinians on NBC’s Meet the Press, ABC’s This Week, and CNN’s State of the Union, viewers did get to hear from Biden National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan 19 times, Biden White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby 12 times, Biden Principal Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer seven times, Biden Secretary of State Tony Blinken seven times, Trump Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff four times, Trump Secretary of State Marco Rubio three times and Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials 16 times. The funders, weapons suppliers, and architects of the destruction of Gaza were given status, prominence and soft ball interviews to promote the genocide while its victims, or anyone related to them, were omitted entirely.
It’s not as if there aren’t plenty of media-ready Palestinian or Palestinian-American guests to choose from, chief among them Palestinian-American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib who has not appeared on any of the major Sunday news shows since 2019. ABC, CBS and NBC did interview Netanyahu in the softest possible terms, lobbing him one or two semi difficult questions, usually about starvation or credible accusations of war crimes, then proceeding to let Netanyahu run through his talking points and outright lies without pushback. CNN’s State of the Union didn’t even bother with this line of questioning. Instead, interviewer Dana Bash, in her two chats with Netanyahu, simply echoed the “too many civilians have died” pseudo-criticism before, once again, letting Netanyahu run through his list of lies and accusing essentially everyone who is criticizing Israel of being “Hamas”.
