One independent New Zealand journalist who has been based in the occupied West Bank for two periods during the Israeli war on Gaza – last year for two months and again this year – is unimpressed with the reportage. Video and photojournalist Cole Martin from Ōtautahi Christchurch believes there is a serious lack of understanding in New Zealand media of the context of the structural and institutional violence towards the Palestinians. Hesitancy to engageHe argues that the hesitancy to engage with the Palestinian media, Palestinian journalists and Palestinian sources on the ground “springs from the idea that to be Palestinian you are inherently biased”. Palestinian journalists are the only journalists able to get into Gaza [and on the West Bank on the ground here]. That’s true, New Zealand media has a funding shortage, and journalists have been let go.