Amid the internal battle over the New York Times’s coverage of Israel’s war, top editors handed down a set of directives.
by Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim, The Intercept
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 displaced Palestinians expelled 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.
The memo — written by Times standards editor Susan Wessling, international editor Philip Pan, and their deputies — “offers guidance about some terms and other issues we have grappled with since the start of the conflict in October.”
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.
Recent Posts
Tragedy and Potential: The Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference
Take Action Now The U.S.’s short, very general, poorly proofread statement on the conference outcome reflected a lack of interest in or familiarity…
California Democrats Keep Selling “Medicare for All” — While Protecting the System That Profits From Sickness
Take Action Now Gov. Gavin Newsom embodies that contradiction more than anyone.By Joshua Scheer, ScheerPost For nearly a decade, California…
Congress Quietly Moves to Integrate U.S. and Israeli Militaries
Take Action Now In the first step towards shifting aid further into the shadows, the House’s 2027 NDAA would all but fuse the two…
Company Behind California Chemical Leak Was Building F-35 Parts Amid Rush of Orders From U.S. and Israel
Take Action Now The military contractor whose leak displaced 50,000 people makes millions aiding fighter jet production for Lockheed Martin.By…