Two weeks into the start of the 2024 academic year, five campus newspapers have provided extended and gullibly uncritical coverage for fringe anti-Israel campaigns.

Six recent articles published in four separate campus newspapers provided sympathetic coverage for local anti-Israel demonstrations, even going so far as to effectively become press outlets for their efforts.

A September 11 article in The Muse, a newspaper at Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN), entitled: “‘There is no back to school in Gaza’: Divestment Campaign Continues with ‘Die-In,’” written by Editor-in-Chief John Harris, reported on an anti-Israel protest on campus which appears to be comprised of less than 10 individuals.

But for The Muse, no anti-Israel protest, no matter how fringe, should be ignored. The article, which referred not to the Hamas-Israel war, but “Israel’s war on Gaza,” was a play-by-play of the tiny group’s “die-in” antics in the school cafeteria, which, given the photo provided, appears to have been completely ignored by other students.

Despite giving extended coverage to what by all accounts seems to be a marginal group’s irrelevant efforts, even still, no attempt at offering any alternative voice was provided in the article.

The Charlatan, a Carleton University campus newspaper, did likewise in a September 14 article entitled: “Palestinian march marks first student action of the academic year as divestment talks remain stalled,” offering an uncritical stenography of a tiny anti-Israel effort on campus.

The article, written by Sadeen Mohsen, documented a protest which appears to have garnered a total of 0.06 percent of the student body, quoting only anti-Israel demonstrators, including student Nir Hagigi, who recently penned an opinion column glorifying Palestinian terrorism. However, zero voices in support of Israel were offered for any balance.

Further west, at the University of Alberta, The Gateway, a local newspaper, provided equally uncritical coverage to a miniscule group with an article by Peris Jones entitled: “Protesters rally at U of A ‘against scholasticide’ in Gaza.”

In the article, Jones repeated the dangerous lie parroted by one organizer alleging “genocide” in Gaza, a claim so devoid of merit that even its main proponent, the South African government, has struggled to produce any evidence for its allegations.

Like the other reports, at no time did Jones offer any balance of voices, instead devoting an entire article to a small rally where “community members” and faculty bolstered extremely modest student numbers.

Simon Fraser University’s The Peak newspaper produced an anonymously-written September 14 article entitled: “Protest for Palestine held at SFU’s Employee Appreciation BBQ,” which informed readers of the earth-shattering news where less than a dozen “students and staff” protested an employee BBQ at the university. But the article did more than just act as a press agent for the local anti-Israel mob; it also helped spread deliberate and hateful lies, including referring to the non-existent “Palestinian genocide.”

At the University of British Columbia (UBC), campus newspaper The Ubyssey produced two articles in its evident attempt to act as the publicity arm of the local anti-Israel mob.

One article entitled: “UBC revolutionary communist club holds open meeting in support of Palestinian solidarity student strikes,” published September 12 by Fiona Sjaus, reported on a meeting by the local communist party student group “to plan student strikes in solidarity with Palestine.” Sjaus told readers that “human rights experts” claim a genocide is taking place in Gaza, linking to an article by fanatical propagandist Francesca Albenese from the United Nations, who has been condemned by Germany and France for her extremist rhetoric and who has been condemned elsewhere for engaging in antisemitism, hardly a reputable source by any stretch of the imagination, and ignoring that by no metric whatsoever is Israel guilty of such a claim.

Rounding out the newspaper’s glorification of anti-Israel protests, a photo essay created by Saumya Kamra provided a glowing photo collage of anti-Israel mobs, featuring students holding signs which glorify Palestinian murder of innocent Israelis, namely promoting the “intifada,” a campaign of Palestinian terrorism.

During the now-defunct anti-Israel occupations on a number of campuses, despite widespread inaction on the part of university administrators, and glowing media coverage, the encampments attracted only a minute proportion of the student body, showing them to be entirely detached from the concerns and views of students.

But that did not stop multiple news media outlets, including on campus, from attempting to manipulate reality by providing incessant fawning coverage of tiny and extremist mobs seeking to demonize Israel and whitewash Palestinian terrorism. These five news stories, deliberately or simply ignorantly, serve to normalize extremist anti-Israel rhetoric on campus.