The New York Times instructed journalists covering Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip to restrict the use of the terms “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” and to “avoid” using the phrase “occupied territory” when describing Palestinian land, according to a copy of an internal memo obtained by The Intercept.
The memo also instructs reporters not to use the word Palestine “except in very rare cases” and to steer clear of the term “refugee camps” to describe areas of Gaza historically settled by internally displaced Palestinians, who fled from other parts of Palestine during previous Israeli–Arab wars. The areas are recognized by the United Nations as refugee camps and house hundreds of thousands of registered refugees.
While the document is presented as an outline for maintaining objective journalistic principles in reporting on the Gaza war, several Times staffers told The Intercept that some of its contents show evidence of the paper’s deference to Israeli narratives.
Almost immediately after the October 7 attacks and the launch of Israel’s scorched-earth war against Gaza, tensions began to boil within the newsroom over the Times coverage. Some staffers said they believed the paper was going out of its way to defer to Israel’s narrative on the events and was not applying even standards in its coverage. Arguments began fomenting on internal Slack and other chat groups.
The NY Times has always been on Team Israel. NYC has a lot of Jewish people so I don’t think it’s an odd or bad thing as long as it’s understood by readers. The “voice” of the Times is that of New Yorkers in the same way the BBC is often that of Londoners even if they try to be objective. The BBC is still a reputable news source even if they covered the Queen’s Jubilee like fan girls.
But not using “occupied territories” or “Palestine” is just silly. That’s what everyone calls the West Bank, Gaza, and (usually) East Jerusalem, collectively. It’s not offensive to ask “Did you go to the Palestinian side?” after a Jewish friend comes back from a trip to Israel. No one but maybe the Israeli far right gives a shit if you say “Palestine.” It’s like refusing to say “New York” and requiring everyone to say “Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and Queens.”
And for the record, The NY Times is also biased towards yuppies and Ivy League schools. It’s always been the upper crust NYC newspaper. I’m not making some sort of coded “Jews control the media” argument. A Presbyterian asshole from Australia controls like a third of it, including the NY Post. Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post and he worships Jeff Bezos, as far as I can tell.
It really can’t be described as “oopsie we had a little bias” anymore. After the fake mass rape article it’s pretty clear the New York Times is just writing propaganda for israel
And the BBC…
It’s time people start realizing that Western media isn’t as unbiased as they once believed. Most of the time it’s actually fine. But when its time to manufacture consent for war crimes they all link their hands together and spread propaganda in unison. Just like they did for the Iraq invasion.
You guys thought western media wasn’t biased?
Yeah except I still remember the BBC faking a translation of Musharraf to make him look like a religious lunatic when talking about nukes.
Also BBC repeatedly sucking up to Nawaz Sharif despite him squatting in England to avoid jail.
More like corporate propaganda than bias at that point, especially with NYT’s falsified rape article.
Personally I think it’s more about the NYT being a semi official mouthpiece of the US empire and its elites.
The NYT reflects the views of US elites most of whom support Israel because it’s a vital client state in a region of incredible security and economic importance to the global structure that empowers those elites.
Remember how NYT reporter Judith Miller teamed up the the neo-cons in Dick Cheney’s circle to “stovepipe” their phony intelligence about Iraq’s WMD to the mainstream media, which they could then cite as part of their justification for the invasion?
Remember also how, after Miller was disgraced and forced to resign, the Times had a public reckoning about its role as a mouthpiece for the establishment in selling a war on false pretenses?
I’d be surprised, because that last bit never happened. They just sort of moved on like it never happened.
Yeah, maybe I’m being too generous, especially in the internet era where it’s the de facto national newspaper. I’m an elder millennial and even I remember a time when having a computer/internet wasn’t universal and it was hard to find a copy of The NY Times outside of cities because it was still a regional paper for the most part. Even in cities, you had to find a specialty newspaper store (which also usually was primarily a cigarette store). So, it didn’t have the same reach.
I’ve lived in the UK for over a decade as an immigrant.
Any exposure to foreign news media alongside the BBC shows that the BBC is certainly not “a reputable news source” when it comes to international news as it’s always pushing a very specific slant aligned with the thinking of the UK and US governments.
As for local coverage, a studdy that the BBC itself had the Nottingham University do some years ago showed that the BBC always leans in favour of whichever party is in Government at the time. The UK’s Government has for some years now been Tories, of late the Brexiter Tories, which are almost as far right as Orban in Hungary, just with a posh education.
If you want a great example, just look up their coverage of Corbyn back when was elected the leader of the Labour Party: one one occasion that news source you call “reputable” literally photoshoped a soviet cap into a picture of him and used it as background in a news segment during the slander campaign to kick Corbyn out as leader of the Labour party because he was an actual leftie rather than a neolib.
Things like Brexit weren’t born in a total vacuum: there is a huge English nationalist pro-neoliberal slant in the coverage from what is still the TV sender with the largest audience in Britain.
100% true, but it is more accurate to call it Team US State Department. It’s essentially the mouthpiece for US foreign interference to manufacture consent of the populace.
Edit: sorry I didn’t read the responses, people have already said this.
Separating conflicts into teams when there a children being killed in the tens of thousands seems… A little reductionist?
Well, yeah, and The NY Times seems to be increasingly horrified and there’s been leaks that their internal debates have been very intense. There’s nuance to be found in this instance.
Personally, I consider war vile morally but also basically obsolete as a way to achieve the ostensible goals. Israel should have treated it as a limited police action that solely focused on freeing hostages while turning Hamas into a shell of its former self. Sadly, they have morons in charge who went with collective punishment and a resurgent Hamas (or an equivalent new group) is basically inevitable.