Media #ViolenceDetox: a project of CODEPINK, Entertainment Labor 4 Palestine and Artists Against Apartheid
Break the Cycle: Media Needs a #ViolenceDetox. Here, you’ll find tools to confront and educate a media landscape that has long fueled genocide through distortion and denial. This teach-in was developed by a Palestinian media professional from within the industry — and it worked. For over 75 years, Western media has flooded the world with toxic misinformation about Palestinians — spreading lies, propaganda, and deliberate distortions that uphold a violent occupation. The media hasn’t just reported on Zionism; it has actively enabled it. Too often, journalists operate inside echo chambers shaped by the Zionist lobby, rarely exposed to Palestinian voices or realities. This toolkit is here to change that.
A genocide justified and enabled by the media says Francesca Albanese.
Our partner in this is Entertainment Labor 4 Palestine and Miriam Arghandiwal says this as a worker inside the media:
It’s up to us — the people — to uplift Palestinian voices, share their stories, and speak the truth that mainstream media so often silences. Right now, you can help detox your media spaces from violence. Take this teach-in into your workplace. If you're part of the media, organize from within: start a lunchroom conversation, form a study group, and build a community committed to truth-telling. Call out the ways media is complicit in the dehumanization of Palestinians — and show what that violence really looks like.
From newsrooms to ad agencies, writers to actors, directors to producers — we must challenge the Zionist narratives and create space for new, just, and honest perspectives to emerge. Let them know: the era of looking away is over. There’s no place left to hide.
Next Steps:
- Where have you been most aggravated by the lies in the media? Make that your target.
- Reach out to friends and allies and invite them to join you in your efforts, it doesn’t take a lot of people, but don’t do it alone, all our work needs to happen with community, people power.
- Research where they have been egregious, create talking points like the ones we created below for CNN, you need to be able to show the racism, and commitment to apartheid they are displaying.
- Do you or someone you know have a contact with someone there, if so reach out, begin a conversation, if they shut it down move to the next step, if they stay open work to get invited in to share, it doesn’t need to start at the top, start where you can and engage those who will listen and they will have the power to move it above themselves.
- If you don’t know anyone, research how to contact anyone, write to all the contacts you can find and offer them a media #violencedetox, express your concerns about what they are doing and say you have taken responsibility to help them. Here is what we sent CNN. If that is shut down move to the next step
- Make a plan to visit and deliver the teaching, plan a day and time where folks will be moving in and out of the location, I like lunch hour, in the media it is usually after 12:30. Plan to be there an hour, get together and make some signs (add #violencedetox ) this will help connect the media from it to other efforts. Make the signs educational, they are speaking to the passers by, those who see your photos on social media and people coming out of the office. Make sure they make sense and deliver the message of what you are doing. Reach out to other activists to join you. You can send press release to other local media, sometimes they like covering what is happening to another media org. This is also a way to educate the media. Let us know if we can support you - here is a link to our media support tools
- Gather at the time and place you have planned, take time to connect to each other, gather yourselves in a way your signs are readable to those walking past and begin the teach in, make sure someone is responsible to take photos and videos. Share on socials with the hashtag and send to us @codepink
- Follow up with the place you were and ask them if they want the teachin in the office.
- Move to the next media target.
- This teaching is also good for opportunities outside of the media as the toxicity of the lies has permeated everything.
- Rinse and repeat as often as you can. You can also join our campaign targeting Netflix for silencing Palestinian voices
Resources:
Noura’s powerpoint training is available for you!
Sign up here to access training!
Watch us delivering the teach in outside of CNN
Here are the talking points the team created for CNN, you can research where your media has been as egregious and speak directly to what they have done and what they could have done better. It is important to help them see what the fix is, as they can’t see past the lies right now.