How Gaza Exposed the Alleged Professionalism of The New York Times

On the footprints of Egyptian media, which goes beyond professional journalistic standards in how to write and address certain issues under instructions from security authorities, the United States is taking a similar approach following Operation al-Aqsa Flood.

A leaked memo revealed that The New York Times issued guidelines to journalists covering the Israeli aggression on Gaza, restricting the use of terms such as "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" and "avoiding" the use of the phrase "occupied territories" when describing Palestinian lands.

In December 2023 and March 2024, supporters of the Palestinian cause demonstrated outside and inside The New York Times building, protesting against the newspaper's bias, claiming to be the liberal media bastion for Tel Aviv in the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.

Protesters gathered outside the newspaper building in Manhattan, New York City, wearing shirts bearing the slogan "Freedom for Palestine," chanting slogans accusing the newspaper of "participating in the genocide in Gaza."

About 100 protesters managed to storm the building lobby despite tight police security measures, chanting against the newspaper's violation of professionalism and neutrality in its coverage of the Israeli aggression.

American Bias

Since the start of the Israeli aggression on Gaza and the execution of genocidal acts, American newspaper readers, especially The New York Times, have noticed the newspaper justifying Israeli killings and destruction while encouraging the extermination of Palestinians. This prompted Americans to protest at the newspaper's headquarters.

Later, after six months of Israeli genocide, it was revealed that Susan Wessling, the standards editor of The New York Times, and international editor Philip Pan imposed a "guidance booklet" on the newspaper's editors in October 2023 regarding what to write about Gaza.

This leaked memo included terms that should not be mentioned regarding how to write about the Israeli war on Gaza, as they depict the brutality and barbarism of the Israeli Occupation and make it accused of war crimes.

A journalist in the American newspaper's newsroom exposed this memo and sent it to The Intercept, which published its details, revealing that the newspaper imposes on its journalists what to write, indicating one of its secrets of blind bias in favor of the Israeli Occupation.

A New York Times journalist said that setting a "stylebook" for writing in any newspaper seems professional and logical if you don't have knowledge of the historical context of the "Israeli–Palestinian conflict."

But if you know (meaning the Palestinian issue is known to all), this means that The New York Times aligns itself with the Israeli narrative, meaning it aligns with the Israeli Occupation's perspective, indicating its bias and lack of professionalism.

Charlie Stadelander, the spokesperson for The New York Times, attempted to justify this bias toward the Israeli narrative by claiming that issuing such directives to ensure accuracy, consistency, and precise differences in how they cover the news is a common practice.

However, because the aggression on Gaza is clear and the reasons for resistance are evident, this has sparked disputes between journalists at The New York Times and the newspaper's management regarding its coverage of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, according to The Intercept.

Ignoring Genocide

The bias in covering the aggression on Gaza, justifying the crimes of the Israeli Occupation, and demonizing Palestinian resistance was not only evident in The New York Times but also in other major newspapers that deliberately conveyed the "Israeli narrative" in their coverage while ignoring the genocide.

Another report by The Intercept on January 9, 2024, revealed that the coverage of the Israeli war on Gaza by newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times showed a consistent bias against Palestinians in favor of "Israel."

It confirmed that they consistently ignored the genocide and humanitarian tragedy in Gaza, which is clearly visible.

The Intercept summarized the dubious role of these newspapers in covering the Gaza war by saying that there is a media tragedy where Western media outlets try to cover up these Zionist crimes and deceive the Western reader.

The danger lies in the fact that major American print media, which play an influential role in shaping American views on the "Israeli–Palestinian conflict," have shown little interest in the unprecedented impact of the Israeli siege and bombing on children and journalists in Gaza.

These major American newspapers disproportionately focused on Israeli deaths in the war and used "emotional language" to describe Israeli killings.

As for the killing of Palestinians, including children and women, and the demolition of their homes, they did not care, according to the American investigative website.

The Intercept also clarified that its analysis of American newspapers showed an unbalanced coverage of so-called "anti-Semitic acts" against Jews in the United States while completely ignoring anti-Muslim racism following October 7, 2023.

It stated that these newspapers translated the conflict in Gaza and its impact on inciting hatred within the United States, focusing more on anti-Semitic attacks than those targeting Muslims.

During the period studied by The Intercept, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times mentioned the term "anti-Semitism" more than "Islamophobia" (at a rate of 549 to 79).

This led to a crisis regarding "anti-Semitism on campus," where Jews and opponents of Palestinians accused American students who demonstrated in support of Gaza of being "anti-Semitic" at times "and calling for the "extermination of Jews" at other times.

This means that the sympathy of major American newspapers with Jews and the exaggeration of accusations against those opposing aggression as "anti-Semitic," compared to turning a blind eye to the persecution of American Muslims, is related to racism against Palestinians and Muslims, according to The Intercept.

In its analysis of major media coverage, Western media outlets often downplay or neglect the suffering of Palestinians, leading to an incomplete and biased narrative.

What Did 1000 Articles Reveal?

In its study of this blind bias toward "Israel" by major American newspapers, led by The New York Times, The Intercept collected and analyzed over 1000 articles from The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times.

All of them revolved around the Israeli aggression on Gaza and the main terms and context used.

It concluded that the statistics revealed a major flaw in the way these newspapers cover Israelis and "Israel" supporters versus Palestinian voices and those supportive of Palestinians.

Where these newspapers preferred and adhered to Israeli narratives and ignored Palestinian narratives, thus easily justifying genocide and the Israeli Occupation's denial of it.

The study affirmed that the coverage of the war in these newspapers presented a grim picture of the Palestinian side, a picture that makes it difficult to humanize Palestinians and thus elicit American sympathy with them "a tougher mission."

Conversely, the coverage was always sympathetic toward Israelis despite their crimes in Gaza.

The analysis revealed that the words "Israeli" and "Israel" were mentioned more than the word "Palestinian" in various forms in the three newspapers, despite Palestinian death tolls exceeding Israeli deaths by miles.

For example, Palestinians were mentioned once for every two Palestinian casualties, whereas Israelis were mentioned eight times for every Israeli casualty, more than the number of times the Palestinian casualty was mentioned, at a rate of 16 times.

The analysis by The Intercept also revealed that these newspapers used highly emotional terms to describe Israeli killings, such as "massacre" and "horrific," without the same for Palestinians.

As a result, editors and correspondents used the term "massacre" to describe the killing of Israelis compared to Palestinians at a rate of 60 to 1, while using the term "massacre" to describe the killing of Israelis compared to Palestinians at a rate of 125 to 1.

Further, they used the term "horrific" to describe the killing of Israelis compared to Palestinians at a rate of 36 to 4.

This once again revealed the double standards followed by Western media outlets, which claim to be bastions of freedom and democracy but contributed to the spread of misleading information and stripped of humanity as they ignore the extermination of children and women in Gaza.

The issue is not limited to newspapers. American academic William Lafi Youmans, an associate professor at the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University and director of the Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, documented in an analytical study the details of this warning from American television talk shows to "Israel."

The analytical study, published on the Responsible Statecraft website, illustrated the bias of newsmakers and elites in America and their detachment from reality when it comes to "Israel."

It monitored the prevalence of unsurprising bias in major talk shows on American channels NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox toward the Israeli Occupation, especially since Operation al-Aqsa Flood and the subsequent devastating aggression on Gaza with American support.

The study observed paradoxes that confirm the blind bias, such as the vast majority of guests (120 out of 140) being Americans who support "Israel," none of whom were Palestinian or even American Arabs, proving bias in favor of Israeli Occupation against Palestinians.

The opinions expressed by the interviewees were overwhelmingly supportive of "Israel," with these guests showing more than twice as much sympathy for "Israel" compared to Palestinians.

Fox News was the most biased toward the Israeli Occupation, with 96 percent of guests expressing pro-"Israel" views and not a single viewpoint supportive of Palestinians.

In other programs, between 60 and 65 percent of guests expressed pro-"Israel" views, five times more frequent than those supportive of Palestinians in all programs aired.

Role of Social Media

From the first day of the aggression on Gaza, the Western media machine bombarded Palestinians, demonizing them, using fake news, promoting the Zionist narrative, obscuring the Palestinian narrative, and covering up the Israeli Occupation's crimes.

The main question posed by the Zionist propaganda control distributed to the majority of Western channels asked all guests one question: "Do you condemn Hamas's attack on Israel?"

However, in contrast to this Western false media narrative supporting "Israel," a parallel narrative emerged in solidarity with the Palestinian people from many Americans and Europeans through alternative media outlets to present the true story about the aggression.

American and European activists emerged to respond to their unprofessional media and exposed the Israeli Occupation's crimes through social media platforms, accusing their media and governments of lying after seeing the true face of the Israeli Occupation.

Protests erupted in front of most American and British newspapers, such as The New York Times, BBC, and the right-wing Zionist-supporting Fox News, to convey messages of protest against their biased coverage.

The chants that besieged BBC buildings in Britain were not spontaneous but intentional after the network showed a blind bias unrelated to professionalism toward the Israeli Occupation.

Analysts see the significance of these protests against the Israeli Occupation and the response of activists and politicians in Europe as a message to Western media and governments to impose a false unilateral vision supporting the Israeli Occupation, indicating that Western media has failed the test of Gaza.

One of the most notable examples of this bias and lack of professionalism was the involvement of American newspapers and channels in spreading lies about resistance fighters cutting off the heads of Israeli children and hanging them on laundry lines, or raping Israeli women, which turned out to be lies.

The bias of Western media was not limited to spreading lies and supporting the Israeli Occupation, but extended to the BBC punishing 6 of its Arab journalists in Cairo and Beirut by firing them just for expressing their opinion freely through social media about their solidarity with Gaza.

MSNBC, the American channel, dismissed 3 of its Muslim presenters from the screen in response to American and Israeli pressures due to their coverage of the Israeli aggression in Gaza.

Al-Jazeera English's website published a letter from 8 journalists working for BBC accusing their channel of bias toward "Israel" and not presenting the suffering of Palestinian civilians adequately, confirming that the organization is guilty of "double standards in how civilians are viewed."

Some journalists working with Western media were forced to resign, while others resigned for refusing to cooperate with their news institutions in concealing the truth about what was happening in Gaza.

In October 2023, Anne Boyer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, essayist, and poetry editor for The New York Times Magazine, resigned from her position in protest of the unfair and unbalanced coverage of the Israeli aggression on Gaza.

Social media platforms, especially those owned by Jews like Facebook, intervened to prevent and delete any sympathy with Gaza, resistance, and opposition to the Israeli Occupation and its crimes, leaving only the misleading Zionist content sympathetic to "Israel" to justify its crimes.

The Israeli Attorney General revealed its coordination with the Meta company, which operates Facebook and Instagram, to delete anything related to Israeli defeat in Operation al-Aqsa Flood and views supportive of Hamas and resistance. The company confirmed that it complied with 90 percent of Israeli requests.

The Samsung Incident

The incident of "Sent from Samsung device" in Egypt dates back to February 25, 2019, when Al-Manassa revealed for the first time "how the state manages its media arms through WhatsApp and email lists."

This was done through directives sent from a security intelligence agency to the channels of the Egyptian Media Group, owned by Eagle Capital, a subsidiary of the Egyptian intelligence (currently owned by United Media Services).

The website quoted sources within the channels on how they receive lists (via WhatsApp and emails) of who is allowed to speak and who is to be excluded from speaking within the channels.

On June 19, 2019, Egyptians first learned about the story of a Samsung device from which an intelligence officer responsible for media sends WhatsApp messages to journalists and TV presenters.

On this day, a presenter from Extra News, a channel owned by the intelligence company, appeared, reading statements attributed to a "responsible medical source" to justify the natural death of the late President Mohamed Morsi.

At the end of the news, the presenter read a footer in the instructions sent to her, saying: "Sent from a Samsung device," revealing that the directive reached her from an intelligence officer via his Samsung mobile phone, before pausing momentarily, astonished, and trying to rectify the situation and continue presenting the news.