by Ramzy Baroud Posted onApril 19, 2024

The New York Times coverage of the Israeli carnage in Gaza, like that
of other mainstream US media, is a disgrace to journalism.

This assertion should not surprise anyone. US media is driven neither
by facts nor morality, but by agendas, calculating and power-hungry.
The humanity of 120 thousand dead and wounded Palestinians because of
the Israeli genocide in Gaza is simply not part of that agenda.

In a report – based on a leaked memo from the New York Times – the
Intercept found out that the so-called US newspaper of record has been
feeding its journalists with frequently updated ‘guidelines’ on what
words to use, or not use, when describing the horrific Israeli mass
slaughter in the Gaza Strip, starting on October 7.

In fact, most of the words used in the paragraph above would not be
fit to print in the NYT, according to its ‘guidelines’.

Shockingly, internationally recognized terms and phrases such as
‘genocide’, ‘occupied territory’, ‘ethnic cleansing’ and even ‘refugee
camps’, were on the newspaper’s rejection list.

It gets even more cruel. “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, leaked and
verified by the Intercept and other independent media.

Though such language control is, according to the NYT, aimed at
fairness for ‘all sides’, their application was almost entirely
one-sided. For example, a previous Intercept report showed that the
American newspaper had, between October 7 and November 14, mentioned
the word ‘massacre’ 53 times when it referred to Israelis being killed
by Palestinians and only once in reference to Palestinians being
killed by Israel.

By that date, thousands of Palestinians had perished, the vast
majority of whom were women and children, and most of them were killed
inside their own homes, in hospitals, schools or United Nations
shelters. Though the Palestinian death toll was often questioned by US
government and media, it was later generally accepted as accurate, but
with a caveat: attributing the source of the Palestinian number to the
“Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza”. That phrasing is, of course,
enough to undermine the accuracy of the statistics compiled by
healthcare professionals, who had the misfortune of producing such
tallies many times in the past.

The Israeli numbers were rarely questioned, if ever, although Israel’s
own media later revealed that many Israelis who were supposedly killed
by Hamas died in ‘friendly fire’, as in at the hands of the Israeli
army.

And even though a large percentage of Israelis killed during the
Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7 were active, off-duty or military
reserve, terms such as ‘massacre’ and ‘slaughter’ were still used in
abundance. Little mention was made of the fact that those
‘slaughtered’ by Hamas were, in fact, directly involved in the Israeli
siege and previous massacres in Gaza.

Speaking of ‘slaughter’, the term, according to the Intercept, was
used to describe those allegedly killed by Palestinian fighters vs
those killed by Israel at a ratio of 22 to 1.

I write ‘allegedly’, as the Israeli military and government, unlike
the Palestinian Ministry of Health, are yet to allow for independent
verification of the numbers they produced, altered and reproduced,
once again.

The Palestinian figures are now accepted even by the US government.
When asked, on February 29, about how many women and children had been
killed in Gaza, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said: “It’s over
25,000”, going even beyond the number provided by the Palestinian
Health Ministry at the time.

However, even if the Israeli numbers are to be examined and fully
substantiated by truly independent sources, the coverage of the New
York Times of the Gaza war continues to point to the non-existing
credibility of mainstream American media, regardless of its agendas
and ideologies. This generalization can be justified on the basis that
NYT is, oddly enough, still relatively fairer than others.

According to this double standard, occupied, oppressed and routinely
slaughtered Palestinians are depicted with the language fit for
Israel; while a racist, apartheid and murderous entity like Israel is
treated as a victim and, despite the Gaza genocide, is, somehow, still
in a state of ‘self-defense’.

The New York Times shamelessly and constantly blows its own horn of
being an oasis of credibility, balance, accuracy, objectivity and
professionalism. Yet, for them, occupied Palestinians are still the
villain: the party doing the vast majority of the slaughtering and the
massacring.

The same slanted logic applies to the US government, whose daily
political discourse on democracy, human rights, fairness and peace
continues to intersect with its brazen support of the murder of
Palestinians, through dumb bombs, bunker busters and billions of
dollars’ worth of other weapons and munitions.

The Intercept reporting on this issue matters greatly. Aside from the
leaked memos, the dishonesty of language used by the New York Times –
compassionate towards Israel and indifferent to Palestinian suffering
– leaves no doubts that the NYT, like other US mainstream media,
continues to stand firmly on Tel Aviv’s side.

As Gaza continues to resist the injustice of the Israeli military
occupation and war, the rest of us, concerned about truth, accuracy in
reporting and justice for all, should also challenge this model of
poor, biased journalism.

We do so when we create our own professional, alternative sources of
information, where we use proper language, which expresses the painful
reality in war-torn Gaza.

Indeed, what is taking place in Gaza is genocide, a horrific slaughter
and daily massacres against innocent peoples, whose only crime is that
they are resisting a violent military occupation and a vile apartheid
regime.

And, if it happens that these indisputable facts generate an
’emotional’ response, then it is a good thing; maybe real action to
end the Israeli carnage of Palestinians would follow. The question
remains: why would the New York Times editors find this objectionable?

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The
Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book,
co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged
Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak Out. His other books
include My Father was a Freedom Fighter and The Last Earth. Baroud is
a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and
Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net.