TV3 uses old and AI-caused photos to illustrate a news story about Gaza

The war in the Gaza Strip has become one of the most thorny political and social debates. As could not be otherwise, the press is not exempt from this polarization, sectarianism, and conflicting interests. In the case of TV3, the anti-Israeli bias of the Catalan public television and its correspondent in the area, Joan Roura, is evident.

This time, the controversy arose because TV3 shared a news story signed by Roura that used an old photograph created with artificial intelligence. Social media revealed this, as they compared the dates of previous publications. A user named "La Baliverna" expressed outrage at the fact that "in our home, the tragedy of Gaza is explained to us by Roura using a photo of children from another family and another photo caused by AI":

This user explained that the source of these photographs is the "usual" one in Roura's case. More specifically, it is "a Hamas operative posing as a journalist" named Motasem A Dalloul. According to the user, this alleged journalist has long used photographs from other wars (such as Syria's) to generate impact.

The final reflection from "La Baliverna" is whether this is the proper news coverage for a public broadcaster to explain "one of the worst conflicts of the last decade." Even more so on a channel like TV3, which has a multimillion-euro budget.

not the first time

This is not the first time Roura has been at the center of controversy for his news coverage of the conflict. On the first anniversary of October 7, for example, Roura recommended getting information from Al Jazeera and called for "strengthening the counterpowers US-NATO-Israel" to "rebalance the post-Gaza world a bit."

In fact, Roura himself was already at the center of an identical controversy to the current one when he circulated a photo that was also fake. In any case, Roura has insisted that "journalism is not neutrality." He defended this position by arguing that "journalism is not neutrality in situations where international law differentiates between sides: victims from victimizers, the occupied from the occupiers":

What is certain is that political and news polarization will continue for a long time. Just recently, Govern decided to close Generalitat's delegation in Israel, which caused criticism among opposition sectors.