'There's genocidal intent in Palestine' says data journalist

Mona Chalabi is a Pulitzer Prize-winning data journalist, illustrator, writer, and commentator who gained international recognition for her distinctive illustrations which distil complex issues into art that is deeply relatable and easily understood.

In this episode of Ways To Change The World, she tells Krishnan Guru-Murthy what people should know about data journalism in a world where we are constantly bombarded by information. She also shares how reporting on Gaza has taken an emotional toll.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
It's been really, really hard tofind any degree of light when
you are reporting on this and you're seeing the images that
I'm seeing every single day. Obviously, it like, takes a
massive toll on your mental health.
Journalists are very often afraid of talking about that
because, again, it implies you're biased.
You're not neutral. But also, like, if I was to say
to you, do you find it disturbing the images that you
are seeing of Palestinian children in Gaza, Of course

(00:21):
you're going to say yes. Like, how can you not say yes?
It is just affecting. There's a light heartedness.
Yeah. Illustration and to your
illustration and A and A and a wit which I'm not getting from
this conversation I mean, if something happened to you, I
mean like you're. A miserable Krishnan.
Well, to be honest, you, you know, you're coming over as that
and I'm wondering, were you a light hearted, witty person who

(00:42):
was trying to get spread messages in a clever way, who
has been beaten down by the realities of what's going on in
Gaza or you're always like this just making witty content?
I don't know, I I, I'm quite lost to be honest.
Hello and welcome to Ways to Change the World.
I'm Christian Girimurthy, and this is the podcast in which we

(01:05):
talk to extraordinary people about the big ideas and their
lives and the events that have helped shape them.
My guest today is Mona Chalabi, A Pulitzer Prize winning data
journalist, illustrator and writer.
She's gained international recognition for her distinctive
illustrations, which distill complex issues like wealth
disparity and racial injustice into art that's very relatable

(01:28):
and easily understood. Welcome to the podcast.
Hi, Krishnan. How do you want to change the
world? I'm going to start with a very,
very humble beginning. Maybe just have journalists
describe what's happening in Gaza as a genocide.
So accuracy and truth is what you want.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I would say that the word
genocide is a far more accurate word for a journalist to be

(01:51):
using than war. I think some of my work is about
trying to present the evidence for why that language makes
sense, right? So I'm trying to use data
journalism to show what is the most accurate language we can be
using to capture reality. OK, so lay out for me why
genocide is the accurate way to describe it.
It's funny, I think part of the reason is because because I take

(02:13):
a longer view of things. So I think that for those of us
who had been watching what had been happening in Palestine, it
was very, very clear from October, from November 2023 that
this would be a genocide. Because we've seen genocide or
behaviour from the Israeli statetowards Palestinians long before

(02:35):
2023. So this felt like it was a
logical extension of that. And when I talk about genocidal
behaviour, I'm talking about state policies that don't allow
for for conditions of life to bebearable, to be healthy.
The Israeli state is clearly upholding those conditions for

(02:57):
Palestinian people and has been for a very long time.
So why? I mean, given you is the first
thing you've said. It's clearly important.
So why do you think it is so important to have that word
used, given how contested it is and given how easy it is to end
up down rabbit Warrens that are irrelevant to what's actually

(03:17):
happening, which is the mass killing and starvation people in
Gaza? But why?
I'm curious, why do they feel like they're rabbit Warrens?
Like it's just to say that mass those.
Those arguments, what I mean is like, it's very easy to end up
arguing with somebody about whether what's going on in Gaza
is a genocide or not and whetherthe intent is there or not.

(03:39):
You know, given the facts on theground and what they could do
and how many people they could kill if they were trying to
exterminate the population rather than actually
concentrating on what's happening, which is 50 to 60,000
people dead, people starving, that that's the key.
So I mean that that's why I'm saying to you sort of why, why
is it? Why is genocide as a word, as a

(04:00):
definition, as a label for what's happening, vital to you?
Because the language of war implies 2 sidedness, it implies
some degree of kind of the equality between these two
powers that are going after one another.
And it doesn't capture this ideaof oppressor and oppressed.
It doesn't capture the idea of an apartheid state.

(04:22):
I mean, even even those statistics that you cite, part
of the reason why they're flawedis because because it is a
genocide, you cannot accurately count the dead during a
genocide, which is why 50,000 to60,000 simply isn't correct.
I'm not able to give you a perfect death toll to contradict
that, but what I can say that's.The number that the Health
Ministry put out and there's no way of obviously corroborating.

(04:44):
On top of that, there will obviously be deaths that are
excess deaths as a result of what's been going on since
October the 7th to, to what would have happened otherwise.
But that that I suppose leads usto what you do, which is, which
is data. And obviously a data journalist
is only as good as their data. So, so how?

(05:05):
How would you, how would you describe the job of a data
journalist? Is to convey information as
accurately as possible and in conveying accurately, you're
also letting audiences know the limitations of that data, right.
So let's go back to death tolls.I'm not saying to people who are
viewing my work or reading my work, this is exactly what the
death toll is. I'm saying it's somewhere

(05:26):
between X&Y and here's the information that we know to give
us a sense of why it is between those two bounds.
And the things like exactly as you were saying, like it's
things like the spread of disease, it's do we know how
many morgues are still operating?
Do we know how many hospitals are just building mass graves
outside to put people inside? So you're taking all of the

(05:46):
information that you have available and communicating as
accurately as possible as you can to audiences.
How did you hit on your style? Yeah, which is about
illustration. Yeah, honestly it was
frustration mostly. I was looking at a lot of these
computer generated graphics thatI feel like actually overstate
certainty. I think for example, a lot of

(06:08):
journalists are putting decimal places in places where they
don't belong. I was really, really
disillusioned actually by watching the way that data
journalism was being used to predict US election outcomes.
So I initially moved to the US to to be in the US to do
practice data journalism in the USI moved in 2013.
So I watched the midterms in 2014 and then the presidential
election in 2016 and became really, really frightened

(06:30):
actually by the way that data journalism was being used.
So I started to kind of draw to have this much more like kind of
humble approach about what it isthat the data can tell you and
and the drawings also imply likea person, me who has my own
opinions was responsible for drawing these illustrations and
people sometimes lose sight of that by the time that it's kind
of embedded in a computer generated graphic.

(06:51):
So what? What was it that was distressing
you about the supposed accuracy of data journalism and the
decimal points? I think there's two things.
One is that it's dishonest, right?
So if you say Hillary Clinton has a 32.4% chance of winning,
that's we don't know it to a decimal place.
We don't know whether or not it's going to rain this

(07:12):
afternoon to a decimal place. How could you possibly predict
the behaviour of millions of voters to a decimal place?
So that's dishonest. Like we have a responsibility to
not only say the facts, but to communicate the degree to which
we're certain about those facts.And the other thing is like, I
just think it's bad for democracy.
I don't think it's good to say to a nation of people, this is
who's going to win before peoplehave actually gone to the polls.
And I think that we as journalists, I'm sure you do

(07:33):
this all the time, Christian, and you don't just think about
like, what is the information tocommunicate?
You're thinking about what are the consequences of the ways in
which I'm communicating it? What are the ways in which this
this information that I'm sharing might affect people's
behaviour in ways positive and negative.
And you have a responsibility tothink beyond just like, what's

(07:53):
the report? You have to think about how that
report is going to live in the world after you've said it.
And so, so is that how you've approached all your stories as
well, so that your, you know, your way of changing the world
is your journalism? Yeah, definitely.
And I think, I think in a way though it is still a little bit
more humble than that, I would hope, which is not that I'm
necessarily trying to like make these enormous changes.

(08:15):
I actually think very often I'm just trying to limit harm.
Like I think that even this example I was giving about the
language of genocide, I think that the language of war is
harmful in understanding what's happening in Palestine right
now. And I think the word genocide
limits that harm that is being done in terms of misinformation,
I mean. I mean, I supposed to come back
to that example, yeah. It's not entirely accurate

(08:39):
either though, is it? Because genocide suggests an
entirely 1 sided conflict, whichGaza isn't.
You know it. It may not be an A war, you know
a war between two armies. It may not be anything like an
equal battle, but there are two sides trying to fight each

(09:00):
other. Can you give me an example of a
genocide that you that you thinkdoes meet that definition of
genocide where there was? I I mean genocide is not
something I ever define. I I will report when the
genocide is found, and so that might be Cambodia or Rwanda or
in Bosnia Herzegovina or in the Second World War.

(09:20):
In all of those examples though,were there not instances where
where they were? They were.
They were a fight. Yeah, there was a fight.
And, and I think it is really interesting when we're saying,
when do we as journalists just say this is a genocide, right?
There are so many, there are so many human rights organisations,
Amnesty International, you know,all of them already, Krishnan,
you know, the states that have also come up and said this is a

(09:42):
genocide. Like, is it that we're waiting
for the British government to say that it's a genocide before
we then feel comfortable? No, no.
I think we, I think this is, youknow, we've got ourselves into a
real mess over calling what's going on in Gaza A genocide or
not, because we we are all waiting for a course of law
which is never going to happen. And so we've, you know, we've

(10:03):
ended up in this situation where, you know, mainstream
media, if you like, feels unableto use the word in its normal
reportage because it doesn't know sort of what's its source.
You know, if it's contested, youknow, why do you say yes?
But it's been ruled as a genocide.
That's the problem. I I hear you.

(10:24):
It is contested. And you know, it's part of the
reason actually why so much of my work is focused on Palestine.
Is this contestation right? Like what is happening in Sudan
right now is absolutely horrificand it's not getting the
attention that it deserves. And yet I'm so much of my
attention is still focused on Palestine because there is a
broad, there is a broad consensus that what's happening.
And there is definitely genocidal intent in Sudan.

(10:46):
And there is definitely genocidal intent in Palestine
when this number of Israeli high-ranking politicians have
said we want to exterminate the Palestinian people, they have
expressed. Genocidal intent.
There are people with genocidal intent.
Yeah. But then even in the case of
Sudan, how many politicians doesit take to express genocidal
intent for us to say it's a genocide?
Like, there's two totally different standards that are

(11:08):
being applied. And I hear you that it's like,
you know, let's just get on withtelling the facts.
But to me, let's just get on with telling the facts is to use
the word genocide, you know? Yeah.
But but why are you? Why are you more distressed?
You clearly are distressed by itby by this mass killing than you

(11:30):
are about the one that's also going on right now.
In Sudan, it's not that I'm moredistressed, it's that this one
is is contested in a different kind of way.
I watch my colleagues readily using the language of genocide
in Sudan, rightly so, to describe that scale of suffering
and to describe again, it's about intent.
It's not just about the scale ofthe suffering.
Well, America said it was. Genocide Exactly, exactly

(11:50):
America's come forward and said it and yet the the British and
the American governments are notsaying that this is a genocide.
And therefore, that's where, because it's contested, that's
where I'm focusing all of my energy.
And yet I think I am distressed because I feel like these are my
colleagues that I'm witnessing using language that I don't
think is accurate. And I'm disappointed and
frustrated with that. And also because I'm

(12:12):
disappointed and frustrated in the ways that Palestinian
journalists are not being heard and listened to.
Palestinian journalists are saying this is a genocide.
They are there. They are living it day after
day. They are literally going without
food as they're trying to report.
They're coming on screen and saying that their family members
have been killed and they're describing it as a genocide, and
I see no reason to not believe what they're saying.

(12:35):
Then I suppose we have to get tosort of what lies underneath it,
which I guess is racism. Yes, yeah.
I mean, there's plenty of racismas well against Sudan.
I want to make that absolutely clear.
Part of the reason why the worldhasn't paid sufficient attention
to the genocide there is becauseof the way that black bodies
aren't respected or valued in the same way that let's say
bodies, white bodies elsewhere might be.

(12:59):
And I would say that the case ofPalestine, part of the reason
why it also takes up so much of my attention is because it is
this confluence of so many things.
Here is colonialism taking placebefore our very eyes.
Here is Islamophobia. Here is anti Arab hatred.
It's everything. How have you seen that in the

(13:19):
course of your work? You see it in the reporting
itself. One of the very earliest pieces
that I did in October, actually I believe I published it like
October 18th, was an analysis ofpieces that were published in
the New York Times. I worked with a researcher
called Holly Jackson's Do This. She had already looked at bias,

(13:39):
biases in New York Times reporting when it came to it as
well, Palestine. So I reached back out to her and
she scraped all of these New York Times articles and looked
at, and this is, again, just in the first few weeks, looked at
the number of mentions of Israeli deaths versus
Palestinian deaths, was able to show a wildly disproportionate
coverage of Israeli deaths and was also able to show the way
that the language, again, language really, really matters,

(14:01):
right? Israelis were described as being
massacred, slain, murdered, and Palestinians were simply, and
they weren't even killed, actually, more often it was
Palestinians dead, Palestinians who have died.
And we see this over and over again, this use of this passive
language in headlines and in articles that again implies that
there's something almost naturalabout the way that Arabs die

(14:23):
and. What?
What was the response in the NewYork Times to your observations?
Well, I actually pitched the data to the New York Times
initially before I published it myself, and they said no, thank
you. And yeah, I wouldn't say they
were particularly interested in the same types of articles that

(14:43):
I was interested in at the time.I'd pitched them this piece
about, again, the disproportionate coverage that
the New York Times has been doing.
I'd also pitched them a piece about how birthright trips might
change in the future. Not particularly interested in
that. Yeah.
I. Just explained Birthright trips.
So Birthright trips are, they are.

(15:07):
I mean, it's something that I saw even in my secondary school,
I saw people that were in my secondary school go off and do
birthright, which is a funded trip to Israel with the stated
purpose of improving relations with the States only for Jewish
people. And as the language implies, it
is reinforcing this idea that when you go to Israel, this is
your birthright. This land belongs to you.
Regardless of where you were born, regardless of where your

(15:30):
parents, your grandparents were born, this is yours.
It was fascinating, actually. The people that went and did
Birthright had a very different reaction to me.
When they came back. I felt like our relationships
changed. I was the only Arab person in my
school, and yeah, suddenly we weren't friends anymore.
And I find it very, very troubling that there are many,
many journalists who have done Birthright trips who don't need
to disclose that as a potential source of bias in their

(15:51):
reporting. There are journalists in very,
very senior positions who have family members that are
currently serving in the IDF as well as having done birthright
themselves. And that doesn't compromise
their objectivity. Whereas for me, the mere fact of
being an Arab means that my opinion on Palestinian Israel is
inherently tainted. Of course I'm biased.
Of course I'm siding with the Palestinians.
And. And did you, did you just feel

(16:13):
that from the way people spoke to you or were you confronted
with it? You know, were you accused of
bias? Accused of being pro Palestinian
because of my you, I it wasn't stated as an as a, as a well, it
wasn't even it wasn't an accusation.
It was what happened was I used to work for these places who

(16:34):
would hire me to do journalism, right, to do my job, which is to
gather research, to gather the facts, to scrutinize the facts,
to question the facts, and then to report them as accurately as
possible. And all of a sudden, after
October, as I said, they said noto all of my pictures that were
based on journalism. And instead, I had one approach
from an opinion desk at The New York Times saying, can you write

(16:55):
about what it feels like to be an Arab Muslim woman watching
what's happening in Palestine? And I found that very, very
upsetting. And you're seeing this, by the
way, across the board, right? Arab journalists are not really
being trusted. I mean, it's shifted a little
bit actually, as the genocide has gone on.
But especially, especially earlyon, we weren't trusted to report
and what was happening, we were being asked to write opinion

(17:16):
pieces. And it's a way of reinforcing
this idea of like, it's all verycomplicated.
It's about identity politics. It's Muslims versus Jews, which
is also absolute crap. There are still, there aren't
many left, but there are still Palestinian Christians living in
Gaza today. Yeah.
And the way that the Israeli apartheid state operates is not
based on whether you are Muslim or Jewish.

(17:37):
It it operates based on whether you are Jewish or anything else.
So so. As soon as you started wanting
to apply your journalism to thisconflict, and that was when they
weren't interested. Yes, absolutely.
And do you? Feel that your career as a

(17:58):
result. I mean is is being cancelled or?
No, I wouldn't go that far. I think it's I think it's
complicated. And also, again, I think about
the ways that I talk about this stuff and the impact that it has
on people who are watching and listening.
I don't want to imply that if you speak up about what the
truth is, and that's literally all that I feel that I have
done. By the way, when I spoke to New

(18:19):
York Times, I said, are you ableto point to any of my work that
I have done since October that has had any factual errors or
inaccuracies? And the answer was no.
So I stand by absolutely everything that I've done, and I
don't want to send a message that if you tell the truth, you
will be punished. I think that's really, really
harmful when it has such a chilling affair.
I would also say, by the way, yes, I pitched it to The New

(18:39):
York Times first before I published it.
But as journalists, don't we always speak publicly in order
to hold people to account? Like, it's such a journalistic
thing to do, to say this is where things are going wrong.
And I made it very, very clear that I I actually think on many
other subjects, The New York Times does phenomenal
journalism. Yeah.
But anyway, I just want to quickly say that I did write to

(19:00):
them afterwards and said, I really, really hope you
reconsider and we can work together again.
Again, this is very, very early on in October.
Things feel very, very differentnow.
It might have actually been early November.
And they wrote back and I said unless you were able to point to
a single factual error, this feels punitive.
And they said, unfortunately, that is our position currently.
Right. So you.
You. Are still the data editor of the

(19:21):
Guardian US? Yeah.
Do they publish whatever you want?
No, no one gets published with whatever you want.
Of course you still have editorsand of course there's still
negotiation, but I feel that my job there, I'm able to report
the truth more effectively, moreefficiently.
Yeah, yeah. That's why I'm now.

(19:41):
More, more, more truthfully. And more truthfully, yeah, I, I,
you know, for example, I pitchedan article about Israeli
settlements. It's just using UN data about
Israeli settler attacks, how many are taking place per year,
what the nature of those attacksare.
And So what what has been your response, having sort of lost
one of your big outlets and the place where you won the Pulitzer

(20:02):
Prize in The New York Times to sort of tell your story?
Is it on your own platform? Is that the answer?
Because in a way, this is quite a depressing story, because this
is sort of. This is somebody who wants to,
you know, get truths out there using the skills that you've
developed. And you're saying you've hit

(20:23):
some brick walls, some pretty depressing brick walls.
Which I think everyone can relate to, and so every
journalist can relate to in one way or another.
I have been using social media, which I think is also fraught
and flawed in all kinds of ways.I'm at the mercy of the
algorithms of these tech companies.
And these tech companies are notparticularly wild about the

(20:46):
kinds of messages you're puttingout, either.
No, no. So it's imperfect and I don't
know. We just keep on trying.
Like I was like, I'll say yes todoing a podcast like this in the
hopes that that language about genocide, someone hears it and
it shifts someone's thinking. I don't know.
I don't know. So do you, do you have a sense

(21:07):
of of how you should get the truth out?
No, I think I'm in a world of tech Bros and populist
government. I think we have to just
constantly be really, really creative and keep on thinking,
not get kind of stuck in our ways.
I think a lot. Again, I know I keep on coming

(21:29):
back to it, but I think a lot about language.
Like I was raised by two parentswho spoke English as a second
language and that informs my journalism because it informs
the the words that I use for stuff.
If there is a simpler word, I'm not going to use the more
complicated word if it captures the truth just as accurately.
Like I'm constantly trying to think about accessibility for
different audiences. You know, I think about one of

(21:49):
the things that I think is sometimes effective about these
charts that I make is that you can share them on WhatsApp with
your auntie. You know, they can be shared in
across different platforms. I try to do like these small
little things where like I'll post it in one colour palette on
Instagram and one colour paletteon like Twitter or on other
platforms to see if it comes up against in another context, I'll

(22:10):
be able to see, oh, where did someone like where you know,
where exactly did they find thispotentially?
I mean, there's a light heartedness.
To. Illustration and to your
illustration and A and a wit to it, which I'm not getting from
this conversation. I mean, if something happened to
you, I mean like you're. A miserable Krishnan.

(22:31):
Well, to be honest, you, you know, you're coming over as that
and I'm wondering, have you beenmade miserable?
You know, were you, were you a light hearted, witty person who
was trying to get spread messages in a clever way, who
has been beaten down by the realities of what's going on in
Gaza Or you're always like this,just making witty content?

(22:54):
You know, this playfulness that I do sometimes use in my
illustrations it, you know, there's often like a time and a
place where it doesn't apply to all subjects.
And I think, yeah, it's been really, really hard to find any
degree of light when, when you are reporting on this and you're
seeing the images that I'm seeing every single day.
Obviously it like takes a massive toll on your mental
health. Yeah, I'm just a person.
It's not even about like the employment opportunities.

(23:15):
I mean, it's just how it's personally affecting to be doing
some of this work. And I think that journalists are
very often afraid of talking about that because again, it
implies you're you're biased, you're not neutral.
But also like if I was to say toyou, do you find it disturbing
the images that you are seeing of Palestinian children in Gaza?

(23:35):
Of course you're going to say yes.
Like, how can you not say yes? It is just affecting.
So yeah, I'm really, really miserable.
It's a shame because I used to be able to like, you know, have
some fun on a conversation like this.
And I, I'm not really feeling that right now.
Yeah. So is what you're trying to
communicate changing then the topics you're you're you're
covering? I don't know, I, I, I'm quite

(23:56):
lost to be honest. It's like, and I feel it's the
case of so many of us. We're just like, what is it that
I'm doing right now? You know, like what, how, what
impact is this having? Why am I doing it?
And yet the idea of not doing what I'm doing is unthinkable
because I I simply can't do nothing.
So I just carry on. And it feels, yeah, it's really

(24:18):
difficult. It's quite crazy making I.
Mean one of the really interesting things you're doing
is, is a cartoon, yeah. Let's change the dynamics.
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, no, no, no.
It's changing the subject, but it's also not, you know, that
you're, you're, you're doing something that's looking at
Muslims in America and, and all the sort of the, I mean,

(24:39):
politics with a small P around that, how women wear a hijab,
how families try and blend in. I mean, how, how did that come
about? How easy was it to get
commissioned? Yeah, so Rami Youssef, who had
Co created the show with Pam Brady, got in touch with me in I
the the early summer of 2020. So the pandemic had just

(25:01):
started. He and Pam had had this idea to
create this animated show that was set in 2001.
He got in touch with me to see if I could like pitch on like
visual ideas for the, for the language of the show.
So #1 Happy Family USA is a animated show about an Arab
Muslim family and it starts on September 10th, 2001.
They're living in New Jersey, and it shows how their lives are

(25:25):
kind of turned upside down that by the political forces around
them. And it was really interesting to
me, again, as a journalist, Like, obviously it was a very
creative endeavour. And it's funny.
Yeah, it's, it's very, very funny.
Obviously it was a creative endeavour.
But, you know, that period also really, really informed my
journalism. I'm sure it really, really
informed your journalism too, right.
Like this was going back to the flaws of journalism and racism.

(25:47):
Like I watched the way that the lead up to the Iraq war was
reported on. I'm Iraqi.
I watched those headlines that were wrong, that were factually
misleading force. And, you know, so much of this
show is about that world and theway that, like, the way that one

(26:08):
particular community became really, really singled out
overnight. Yeah.
What is the atmosphere in American TV right now around
that kind of topic? Yeah, I don't know if the show
would get made today, to be totally honest.
I feel like there has been a kind of shift, I would say, in a

(26:29):
lot of media to be like, oh God,uh, we should probably be can
catering more to, uh, conservative audiences.
I mean, you have networks who are clearly afraid.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Umm, and they're right to be
afraid. I mean, there have been
lawsuits, uh, National Public Radio has been defunded by this
presidency. People are losing money.

(26:51):
And umm, as, you know, like people might have this sense,
like, you know, we're sitting ina nice studio.
Umm, actually, journalism is really, really struggling
financially. And without state support, it's
very, very, very difficult to make good journalism.
Yeah. And for you as a, as a, as a
data journalist, where, where doyou, I mean like where do you do

(27:14):
your journalism? Can you do your journalism at
home and do you yearn more to beon the ground?
Yeah, so funny when you say on the ground, I'm like again,
getting bogged down in language,but I feel like so much of
journalism actually uses the language of like warfare, like
out in the field on the ground, which I find quite.
These are journalistic cliches. I know they're cliches, but

(27:35):
they, they have meaning, right? Like, you know, it shapes the
way that we think about the workthat we do.
I do spend a lot of the time at my desk, but I'm also always
picking up the phone. I feel like it's really, really
important to ask people who havegot lived experience.
So whatever it is, let's say I'mreporting on, I'm doing some
kind of chart about, I don't know, widowers and like widowers

(27:58):
by age. I want to speak to somebody who
has had an experience of losing a spouse, partly to make sure
that the the work is tonally correct, that it feels like it's
considerate and respectful. I also want to speak to some
people about the why data is so often flawed, about telling you
the why. It will tell you how something
has changed, when it changed, where it changed, if it changed.

(28:18):
It's very, very bad at telling you why something has changed.
Yeah, No, I mean, I asked, you know, for me, for me as a
journalist, I spent obviously a huge amount of time in the
studio. Yeah.
But if I don't get out and go tothe stories as well for a period
of time, I I go a bit crazy. Yeah.
Because I feel disconnected fromwhat's definitely going on.
So it's very, very important forme to get out.
And I, you know, I just wonder whether you feel that more.

(28:40):
Now I do, yeah. And I thought it before.
I, you know, again, I have this really cynical take on data.
I don't believe that it's like this perfect, more accurate way
of, of understanding the world. I think very often it like
flattens out human experiences in ways that are quite damaging,
right? Like if you're constantly just
reporting on, for example, like,you know, the average
unemployment rate nationally, there are people who are going
to be in cities across this country who are going to be

(29:02):
like, wait a second, that doesn't represent our experience
whatsoever. There's going to be demographic
groups who are like, wait, that's not what things look like
for me. So yeah.
There was a sort of fetishisation of data, wasn't
there? Where, where, where people
thought, well, you can't argue with data, You can't argue with
numbers because they're facts. Yeah, actually you can't.
You can't. And even though I still think
we're part of that fetishisation, I think we're
still seeing it now. I mean, it's definitely the case

(29:24):
in tech, isn't it? That data is everything so.
What do you think people should understand about data and data
journalism? I think they should understand
that it is also flawed and that it's really, really important
that they look at what the sources of that information are
and that they then go and question the reliability of
those sources. So for example, even if it's
something as simple as like a poll, right?

(29:45):
So I'll give a, a poll that comes to mind.
Like there was a poll. Did you see these Haaretz polls
that were done quite recently about Israeli public opinion?
And what percentage of Israelis believed that like, you know,
all of Gaza should be flattened again with with a poll like
that? I want to understand how many
people were asked, was it all across the country?
Which age groups were asked? You know, generally anything

(30:05):
less than 1000 people really isn't considered particularly
reliable. What was their methodology?
And it's really hard, right? Because even as I'm saying these
things, it's quite unreasonable actually, to expect every
reader, every viewer, to do thatwork every single time when
they're presented with information.
But I think if you can do it at least some of the time, you
start to better understand, OK, the distinctions, let's say,

(30:27):
between Channel 4 News and Fox News.
Because you'll quickly see the way that these two sources use
information is very, very different.
And, and do you think these are,I mean, it's like being able to
spot fake news as well, isn't it?
I mean, do you think these are skills that's we we will all
have to get pretty quickly if wewant to discern the truth from

(30:49):
the lies? Yeah, I think what I worry is
happening is that a lot of people are just opting out.
Don't you think a lot of people are just like?
This is really confusing. So just avoid it.
Yeah. And people are questioning
whether or not it relates to their daily lives.
They're finding it distressing, like, oh, it's very, very
upsetting hearing what's happening in Palestine.
So they're just looking away. And that really worries me as
well. And that's again, part of the

(31:09):
reason why I use illustration like it is important to show
that there are Palestinian children who have literally been
beheaded. And at the same time, there is
there is a place for those photographs.
And it's not what I use in my work, partly because I know that
as soon as I publish that that photograph, there are so many
people who are either going to want to unfollow me, keep

(31:29):
scrolling because it's upsettingand and it should be upsetting.
But also there's, you know, we're all doing different roles
in terms of the visual information that we're sharing.
And. It's so rough.
I'm sorry. I know it is so miserable.
And like, I yeah, it's not fun. I'm trying to think of anything
that's like less miserable to talk about.
Krishnan. It's, well, it's, I mean, it's,

(31:54):
it's, it's striking, you know, how, how do you, do you feel
more affected by this than you did the Iraq war?
That's a really good question too.
It's it's so different in some ways.
In 2003, I was 15 years old. I don't even think I like, I
actually get very upset thinkingabout what my parents were

(32:15):
living through because I didn't grasp it at all at the time.
I think I'm more affected by this in some ways, again,
because I'm just at a very different place in my life, but
also because I I feel very, veryafraid of complicity.

(32:36):
That's what I'm really talking about when I'm obsessing over
whether or not we use the language of genocide or war.
I actually think to use the language of war is to be
complicit in the language and the messaging that the Israeli
state wants journalists to be using.
And so that's why I'm so deeply troubled right now is like, in
which ways am I complicit? By the things that I'm buying,
by the things that I'm saying, by the the websites that I'm
reading. As an adult, you you are

(32:58):
burdened with that, with that guilt in a different kind of
way. Do you feel the need to start
living more, More literally, youknow, not buying goods not just
from Israel but from America or wherever else I mean?
Yeah, I mean, I personally. You're living in America.
Yeah, I am. I am.
Which is which is complicated. I'm paying taxes in America.

(33:20):
I'm paying taxes in this country.
This is also a country which is materially supporting the
genocide. Yeah.
I I I'm again talking about how journalism could change, Right.
I don't see much news reporting about the efficacy of resistance
movements. That's not really part of our
vocabulary in journalism, right?Like, it feels surprising, I

(33:42):
guess, to imagine an evening broadcast that is talking about
whether or not BDS, for example,is working.
And I feel like actually, that is the kind of journalism that
could also help to change the world by letting people know
what works. And I do believe that BDS, it
might not be working as much as it should right now, as much as
it could if more people are involved.
Again, for me, my main priority is the knowledge that I'm not

(34:04):
being complicit rather than thisidea that it's going to make the
genocide stop. But I also believe it can be
effective in in at least slowingdown the rate of killing.
Well, no, no, we must leave it there.
Thank you so much for being so open about the the dilemmas and
the misery, I suppose around around confronting what you do.

(34:25):
I hope you enjoyed that. You can watch all of these
interviews on the Channel 4 NewsYouTube channel.
Until next time, bye bye.