An internal style memo from New York Times editors tells reporters not to use words like “genocide” or “Palestine” when covering Israel’s war on Gaza.

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.

  • @[email protected]OPEnglish
    60•9 months ago

    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.

    • StametsEnglish
      56•9 months ago

      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.

      • @[email protected]OPEnglish
        34•9 months ago

        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”.