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.
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What’s wrong with saying Palestine?
They don’t want them to exist. Best not to talk them as a country.
Palestine was recognized by the UN as a sovereign non-member state in 1988. It has no declared borders, so it could be considered inaccurate to refer to Palestine as a location rather than referring to the Palestinian people, leading to libel suits.
Basically, Palestine is wherever the Palestinians are. Legally, an attack on the Palestinian people is an attack on Palestine, but an attack on the formally occupied parts of the West Bank are not.
Like Asgard?
Actually, kinda. lol
So, we’re the Palestinians living in Gaza by chance?
Yes, as well as the West Bank. My point is NYT was probably avoiding libel suits due to the ambiguity of the term “Palestine” because it’s more a definition of a people than a place.
As for the other restrictions, I think we all know what they were trying to avoid saying.
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Maybe because Palestine is two separate territories with separate governments, and one is not at war? I don’t know what they say about using some variation of Gaza, but that seems more relevant to me
So does Palestine consider themselves under attack by Israel?
That’s a very important question that I haven’t seen covered in news.
All we have to go on is no news of military action, but is that just poor media coverage? Or maybe I just need to look for it
The West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem have been considered Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) since 1967, the occupation was a deliberate decision by Israel.
Israel is an Apartheid State by every international definition, with systematic discrimination and oppression of Palestinians. Divide and Conquer has been a tactic to separate Gaza from the West Bank, and also divide the West Bank into isolated enclaves.
On 1967:
Israel Claimed Its 1967 Land Conquests Weren’t Planned. Declassified Documents Reveal Otherwise: Haaretz and Forward
On Apartheid:
Amnesty International Report, Human Rights Watch Report, B’TSelem Report / Explainer
On Divide and Conquer tactics:
“Divide and Rule”: How Israel Helped Start Hamas to Weaken Palestinian Hopes for Statehood -DemocracyNow, History of Hamas -CFR, Inside the Israeli Plan That Propped Up Hamas -NYT
They have no recognized borders, but are recognized as a non-member state by the UN.
The Times memo outlines guidance on a range of phrases and terms. “The nature of the conflict has led to inflammatory language and incendiary accusations on all sides. We should be very cautious about using such language, even in quotations. Our goal is to provide clear, accurate information, and heated language can often obscure rather than clarify the fact,” the memo says.
“Words like ‘slaughter,’ ‘massacre’ and ‘carnage’ often convey more emotion than information. Think hard before using them in our own voice,” according to the memo. “Can we articulate why we are applying those words to one particular situation and not another? As always, we should focus on clarity and precision — describe what happened rather than using a label.”
Despite the memo’s framing as an effort to not employ incendiary language to describe killings “on all sides,” in the Times reporting on the Gaza war, such language has been used repeatedly to describe attacks against Israelis by Palestinians and almost never in the case of Israel’s large-scale killing of Palestinians.
In January, The Intercept published an analysis of New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times coverage of the war from October 7 through November 24 — a period mostly before the new Times guidance was issued. The Intercept analysis showed that the major newspapers reserved terms like “slaughter,” “massacre,” and “horrific” almost exclusively for Israeli civilians killed by Palestinians, rather than for Palestinian civilians killed in Israeli attacks.
Despite the memo’s framing as an effort to not employ incendiary language to describe killings “on all sides,” in the Times reporting on the Gaza war, such language has been used repeatedly to describe attacks against Israelis by Palestinians and almost never in the case of Israel’s large-scale killing of Palestinians.
Thank you for bolding it because it is the only relevant part of the article. If they wanna use scaled back language then fine, I have no real issue with that but if you’re breaking those rules for one side and upholding them for another then you’re just a hot pile of biased bullshit.
The banning of the terms Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing and Occupied Territory are also really important. The big difference is of course that the words slaughter, massacare etc can apply to both Palestinians and israelis. But their selective usasage does signify a massive double standard which proves the New York Times’ bias in favor of israel.
And it confirms earlier suspicions such as NLP reports from Holly Jackson written about a month into the Genocide that this selective usage of loaded terms against Palestinians was not accidental. It is a deliberate propaganda campaign for israel.
Another important fact here is that New York Times was not alone in this significant propaganda effort. Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, The Guardian, Reuters, and more. All of them had this very obviously skewed usage of language biased in favor of israel. Passive vs active tone, Palestinians “died” and israelis were “brutally slaughtered”.
This is why I cancelled my subscription. I’m not paying for Israeli propaganda.
And they expect a subscription payment to read this biased garbage?
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
Research into media coverage exposes the way that language can diminish the enormity of the crimes against the people of Gaza. On the BBC, between 7 October and 4 November, words like “mass murder”, “brutal murder” and “merciless murder” were used 52 times by journalists to refer to the deaths of Israelis but never in relation to Palestinian deaths.
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.
It’s time people start realizing that Western media isn’t as unbiased as they once believed
You guys thought western media wasn’t biased?
The NY Times has always been on Team Israel.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
We need a journalist who’s like a cat. Tell me which words not to use and I’ll know those are the words you just wanna have all to yourself. Now they’re my words. Also fuck this vase on the shelf.
If I had the money, I’d drive around in an Italian sports car and report things as I actually see it, but with a specific focus on stomping on things I’m told to tiptoe around.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
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.
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.
“I think it’s the kind of thing that looks professional and logical if you have no knowledge of the historical context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” said a Times newsroom source, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, of the Gaza memo.
The latest Palestinian death toll estimate stands at more than 33,000, including at least 15,000 children — likely undercounts due to Gaza’s collapsed health infrastructure and missing persons, many of whom are believed to have died in the rubble left by Israel’s attacks over the past six months.
In the cases of describing “occupied territory” and the status of refugees in Gaza, the Times style guidelines run counter to norms established by the United Nations and international humanitarian law.
as each has a slightly different status.” The United Nations, along with much of the world, considers Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem to be occupied Palestinian territories, seized by Israel in the 1967 Arab–Israeli war.
The original article contains 1,890 words, the summary contains 244 words. Saved 87%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Sounds like there is some blackmail or bribery going on ;3
