Celebrities Including Susan Sarandon Arrested Protesting Netanyahu at UN
Left 50%
Center 0%
Right 50%
1 left · 0 center · 1 right
What happened
On Thursday, celebrities including Susan Sarandon, Hannah Einbinder, and Elliot Page protested Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s appearance at the United Nations General Assembly, gathering outside U.N. headquarters in New York City. Social-media video showed Page, Sarandon, and Chelsea Manning among people blocking a road near the building. Police detained Sarandon and Einbinder; photographs of them in handcuffs circulated online, and Variety reported it remained unclear whether they were arrested or only detained. Netanyahu delivered his speech; some delegates walked out. He asked, "Where were you when the Iranian tyrants butchered and maimed tens of thousands of unarmed Iranian civilians?" and called the absentees and those chanting outside "phony human rights protesters."
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No article names a source or cites a document. It started with unnamed sources and none has been named since.
What these terms mean and how they're counted
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- Primary evidence · cites a document or data 0 of 2
- Primary evidence means the article cites a record you could check yourself: a court filing or ruling, a dataset or report, a recording or transcript, an official statement or press release, market data. A quote is not a document. The count is how many articles cite one. Here: None cited.
- Credits another outlet 0 of 2
- The article says the story comes from another outlet's reporting (“first reported by Reuters”). Those articles relay the story; they are not independent confirmation. Here: Each article presents its own reporting.
- Unnamed sources 0 of 2
- The main claim is attributed to people who are not identified: “people familiar with the matter”, “officials said”. The count is how many articles do this.
- How it developed
- When the first report landed and whether it named anyone; when the first named source and the first document appeared. Here: First report Sep 25, 00:45 UTC by Breitbart, with no named source. No article has named one since.
- Not counted 0
- Opinion, analysis and video pieces, and articles too short to assess. Every count above is out of the counted articles. An article republished under a new headline is one article.
This is about who is cited, not whether the story is true. Each source below says what it names. How we count
Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
Left-leaning coverage reports the celebrity detentions without saying what the protesters did, while right-leaning coverage describes them blocking a road and names additional participants. Right-leaning coverage is simply more complete on the scene itself. Left-leaning coverage at The Hill states only that celebrities were detained outside United Nations headquarters. Right-leaning coverage at Breitbart reports footage showing Elliot Page and Chelsea Manning among those blocking a road with Susan Sarandon. Without that scene, a reader cannot tell whether police stepped in after a street obstruction or a sidewalk gathering.
Headline wording on the same police action diverges: left-leaning coverage says "arrested", right-leaning coverage says "detained". Even the left-leaning body line then switches to detained, so the headline term is not carried through.
Were the detained actresses booked on a charge, or only held and released?
Bottom line
The Hill never mentions a blocked road or Elliot Page in its UN detention item, both of which appear in Breitbart's report of the same protest.
The receipts — 2 facts one side's coverage lacks
- Photos showed actors being led away from the protest in cuffs
- Netanyahu accused those chanting against him outside of being phony human rights protesters
The Left View
The Hill framed the story as the arrest of celebrities, naming Susan Sarandon and Hannah Einbinder in the headline and stating that multiple celebrities were detained outside U.N. headquarters. That coverage treated the police action against the performers as the central news.
The Right View
Breitbart described Elliot Page as a "Transgender actor" and labeled Page, Sarandon, and Chelsea Manning "dissidents blocking a road." It emphasized Netanyahu’s "phony human rights protesters" charge and his question about inaction toward Iranian killings of civilians, and it placed Sarandon and Einbinder’s participation in the context of their criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza, which it said began after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023. The outlet cited Sarandon’s 2024 appearance with anti-Israel protesters outside Columbia University, her claim that "agencies that are telling people not to hire me still," and Einbinder’s statements that "the cost of not speaking is higher" and that she was "under no impression that my one small career could ever measure up in comparison to even one human life."
Our Take (balanced)
The left’s strongest argument is that police custody of prominent performers at a U.N. protest is itself the story, as The Hill’s "arrested" framing underscored. The right’s strongest argument is that the demonstration reflects selective outrage, citing Netanyahu’s Iran comparison and the protesters’ focus on Israel’s Gaza war after the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack. The central unresolved tension is whether those celebrity detentions mark legitimate protest of a head of government’s policies or the "phony" human-rights activism Netanyahu alleged.
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