Over the last eight weeks, anti-Israel rallies across North America, Europe and beyond have been beset by violent anti-Israel, and sometimes even outright antisemitic language. On November 25, an anti-Israel rally on Parliament Hill in downtown Ottawa was held, which featured a huge sign calling for violent uprising against Israel.

But in her November 28 coverage of the event in The Tribune, a student newspaper at McGill University entitled: “Montreal students flock to Ottawa to demand Canadian government call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza,” author Jasjot Grewal, the newspaper’s news editor, showed only one side of the demonstration, a sanitized version where attendees “marched in Ottawa to stand with Palestine and demand that the Canadian federal government call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.”

According to the article, the rally in Ottawa was organized by a number of organizations, including the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM). Though Grewal failed to tell readers anything about the group, PYM’s leaders have engaged in hateful anti-Israel speech, including overtly glorifying Hamas terrorism against Israel.

Troublingly, according to the article, travel to Ottawa for members of The Tribune was paid for, in part, by the PYM. And although the statement claims that “this did not impact the writing or the editing of the piece,” the article is little more than a stenographer’s account of the rally and reads as a press release, not journalism.

In her recounting of the demonstration, Grewal extensively quoted participants at the demonstration who shared unfounded or false information, but never once provides readers with any context or correction to the falsehoods being peddled.

Grewal quoted one organizer, Yara Shoufani of the PYM, as calling for “the liberation of all our prisoners and the liberation of Palestine,” but never informed readers that unlike Hamas, which kidnapped innocent civilians from southern Israel during their terrorist attack on October 7, Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails were detained for specific reasons, including violent attacks and attempted murder.

Reading Grewal’s account of Shoufani’s words gave a profoundly false picture of the nature of why Palestinians are in Israeli jails, suggesting that they are innocent and somehow comparable to Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas.

Grewal doesn’t just quote other spewing falsehoods; she also reports unsubstantiated Hamas messaging without attribution. She writes that “over 14,854 Palestinians have been killed, of which more than 6,150 are children.” However, nowhere does Grewal point out that the singular source for all Gaza casualty information is none other than Hamas, via its so-called “Gaza Ministry of Health.”

Not only is there no confirmation of these numbers at all, but additionally Hamas does not differentiate between civilians and Hamas terrorists, who are combatants, nor between those killed in Israeli strikes or by errant rockets fired from within Gaza, which have killed scores of civilians inside Gaza. Yet Grewal reports Hamas claims as if they were verifiable data, which they unquestionably are not.

The article quoted one unnamed student at the rally, a member of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) at McGill University, a group that released a statement four days after October 7 effectively justifying Hamas’ attacks as a response to Israeli actions.

The student falsely accused Israel of carrying out a “genocide” in Gaza. And while the student has a right to speak their mind, even spreading nonsensical falsehoods, Grewal has a responsibility a journalist for a student newspaper, and as its news editor, to provide readers with factual context demonstrating in no uncertain terms that Israel is unquestionably not committing a genocide in Gaza, nor anything close to it.

Student newspapers, along with any other news media outlet, has the freedom to cover any story they so desire. But that does not excuse them from taking responsibility for ensuring fairness and accuracy, and not acting as servile promoters of anti-Israel content unquestionably.