The Occupation Style Guide with Sana Saeed

About the Project

Following the October 7 Palestinian groups’ attacks in Israel and the ensuing Israeli bombardment and siege of Gaza, coverage in the U.S. news media took on a hysteria that patently ignored the brutality being exacted on a population of 2.2 million people. Obfuscation and erasure of U.S. complicity in Israeli war crimes became the order of the day – it all was reminiscent of where the news industry had been twenty years prior.

Newsrooms, over the course of the war against Gaza, have become their own fronts defined by both internal and external strife over language, headline choices, exonerative voice use, equivocation of violence and suffering and the ignoring of Palestinian perspectives and claims. The AJ+ team behind the 2022 OJA finalist ‘Backspace’, a media critique series with Sana Saeed, realized the need to offer sober and thought-out engagement with words, concepts and ideas surrounding coverage of the Israeli occupation of Palestinians. Working with the AJ+ Head of Copy, Cate Malek and Editorial Manager, Tony Karon, the Backspace team created the series ‘The Occupation Style Guide’.

The purpose of the Occupation Style Guide series is targeted explanation of key concepts of the Occupation, catered to the digital audience – specifically those who are on Instagram and Twitter. The series provides quick, succinct episodes exploring editorial choices made by AJ+ in its language that are contrasted against what is the dominant standard in the industry. The submissions look specifically at everything ranging from the use of words like “war and conflict”, to the use of “evacuations” to describe forcible displacement; the use of words like “detainees” versus “prisoners” or “hostages” to even how language is used to make Palestinians into legitimate targets of Israeli violence.

Much like the series umbrella it falls under – Backspace – The Occupation Style Guide’  tackles an issue critical to not only the American public but also the American fabric.  At the core of our work is the belief that the strongest democracy is a democracy with an informed public, and at the core of an informed public is media literacy. Itis only then that power can be understood and held accountable.

Judges Comments

There’s a lot of conversation about how social media is not journalism, but this is a powerful piece of journalism that meets consumers where they are with a target demographic. We know trust is an issue and this is making a conscious effort to build trust and to address media literacy, and they have a form that can be scaled.