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By Jim Naureckas / Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)
US media know who Chris Smalls is.
- The New York Times (4/6/22) ran a profile: “Christian Smalls Is Leading a Labor Movement in Sweats and Sneakers.”
- New York (7/18/22) put him on its cover, saying, “Chris Smalls Did the Impossible: Organize an Amazon Warehouse.”
- “He Was Fired by Amazon Two Years Ago,” an NPR report (4/2/22) declared. “Now He’s the Force Behind the Company’s First Union.”
- “He Came Out of Nowhere and Humbled Amazon,” read a Time headline (4/25/22). “Is Chris Smalls the Future of Labor?”
Last week, Smalls took on another Goliath. As part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, he tried to deliver life-saving aid—including food and baby formula—to the people of Gaza, who are suffering from a severe famine deliberately engineered by the Israeli government.
The Handala, the ship carrying the aid, was illegally seized in international waters by Israel’s military, and Smalls was singled out for violence, choked and kicked by Israeli soldiers, apparently because he’s Black. Past attempts to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza have been dealt with even more harshly by Israel: In 2010, 57 activists aboard the aid ship Mavi Marmara were shot—nine of them killed—on their way to Gaza (Guardian, 6/4/10).
A near-complete blackout
A popular political figure dramatically assaulted trying to save lives: Sounds like a newsworthy story, doesn’t it? But Smalls’ mission, his brutal detention and his subsequent release got next to no coverage in US corporate media.
He was covered in the British Guardian (“US Labor Activist Chris Smalls Assaulted by IDF During Gaza Aid Trip, Group Says,” 7/31/25). He was covered in progressive US outlets like Common Dreams (6/26/25), the New Republic (7/29/25) and Democracy Now! (7/31/25).
He was covered by outlets with a Black or Mideastern focus (Grio, 7/29/25; Black Enterprise, 7/30/25; Ebony, 7/31/25; Middle East Eye, 7/29/25; Middle East Monitor, 7/30/25).
But as independent labor reporter Mike Elk (Payday Report, 7/29/25) pointed out:
Despite Smalls having been profiled by every major media outlet in the US when he successfully led the union drive at Amazon, not a single major media outlet has covered his violent detention by the IDF.
In fact, the only news report we could find in a general-interest US news outlet was from Smalls’ hometown paper, the Staten Island Advance (7/29/25), which reported that a “Staten Island Labor Leader Was Reportedly Detained in Israel After Gaza-Bound Aid Vessel Was Intercepted.”
Regular readers may recall a similar news blackout, not quite as absolute, when Greta Thunberg, probably the most famous climate activist in the world, was blocked by Israel from delivering aid to Gaza on another Freedom Flotilla ship (FAIR.org, 6/5/25).
Characters that corporate media once found fascinating, risking their lives to save innocents: It would be hard to make up a story with more dramatic potential. Yet corporate media knew that these were stories to steer clear of—almost unanimously, in Smalls’ case.
The only thing worse than war crimes
The reason, of course, is the corporate media’s longstanding bias toward Israel—something FAIR (e.g., 8/22/23; Extra!, 11–12/93, 1–2/01, 9/14) has been documenting for decades. But it’s still puzzling; obviously, not every negative story about Israel gets killed. US media have even begun to gingerly acknowledge that Gaza is on the brink of mass starvation—with varying degrees of admission of Israel’s responsibility for this (FAIR.org, 7/29/25).
But even as media admit that Palestinian children are dying for lack of food, people who risk their lives to try to feed them aren’t treated as heroes—or even as curiosities. It’s as if, however bad Israel’s actions are, trying to stop or counteract them is somehow worse—even shameful, something to avert one’s eyes from.
It’s the only way to make sense of the continuing debate over academia’s response to the pro-Palestine protests that roiled campuses in 2024. The New York Times (7/28/25) recently reported:
Harvard University has signaled a willingness to meet the Trump administration’s demand to spend as much as $500 million to end its dispute with the White House…more than twice as much as the $200 million fine that Columbia University said it would pay when it settled antisemitism claims with the White House last week.
The “antisemitism claims” referred to here amount to accusations that these and other colleges did not do enough to squelch the protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza—which has since been identified as a genocide by prominent human rights groups like Amnesty International (12/5/24), Human Rights Watch (12/19/24) and B’Tselem (7/28/25).
Where is the debate over whether universities went too far in suppressing the free speech rights of students who were opposed to genocide? That seems like a discussion we’re never going to have. Apparently the only thing worse than crimes against humanity is trying to stop them.
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Jim Naureckas
Jim Naureckas is the editor of FAIR.org, and has edited FAIR’s print publication Extra! since 1990. He is the co-author of The Way Things Aren’t: Rush Limbaugh’s Reign of Error, and co-editor of The FAIR Reader. He was an investigative reporter for In These Times and managing editor of the Washington Report on the Hemisphere. Born in Libertyville, Illinois, he has a poli sci degree from Stanford. Since 1997 he has been married to Janine Jackson, FAIR’s program director.