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.
There goes the last of NYT integrity
Technically the very last of it would be gone if NYT staff didn’t give all of this info to The Intercept.
NYT made sure to harass their Arab employees to find out who’s leaking this info:
Union Accuses NYT Of Racially Targeting Staff In Leak Probe Over Paper’s Israel Reporting
In a letter sent Friday to Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger, Susan DeCarava, president of NewsGuild of New York, said that union-backed journalists who raised concerns about the paper’s approach to covering Gaza were being “targeted for their national origin, ethnicity and race, creating an ominous chilling-effect across the newsroom and effectively silencing necessary and critical internal discussion.”
The Times launched an internal leak probe, which was first reported on by Vanity Fair, after The Intercept published an exposé in January revealing that the newspaper’s flagship podcast, “The Daily,” had canceled a planned episode of a Times investigative report alleging Hamas militants “weaponized sexual violence” when they attacked Israel on Oct. 7. According to the exposé, the episode was shelved after the December report could not pass a fact check and had faced questions of credibility from staff and the public.
In response to the exposé, the Times’ leadership launched a weekslong investigation to find the alleged whistleblower who leaked information to The Intercept. In her letter, DeCarava said that guild members “asserted their protected right to union representation” when they were called into meetings with management’s investigators.
Even more evidence that the journalists at NYT are fighting back against the corporate leadership.
I thought whistleblowers were meant to have immunity. Also, the assumption that only people of Arab descent would find the treatment of Palestinians detestable… Absolutely bonkers.
Style guides similar to this are pretty standard. This much bias in them is not.
They can’t lose their integrity if they never had it in the first place
Friendly request to put NYT on the ban list for propaganda outlets
Just the other day I was on this stupid website getting attacked because I dared to say that NYT was not a particularly reliable outlet, and that they should be taken with extreme skepticism if they use anonymous sources.
I was told five months ago by a user here when debunking the NYT’s fake rape article that “I should learn a thing a thing or two about media literacy”. Because “the New York Times is highly reputable! Unlike those fake news outlets like Mondoweiss and TheGrayzone!”
That did not age well.
I didn’t even think about the recent rape stories, my mind went straight for the Iraq war.
The rape stories were absolutely massive in manufacturing consent for israels Genocide. Israel denied a UN forensic investigation into their fake rape accusations. We now know that those were works of fiction, mostly from ZAKA which made up the 40 beheaded babies. But then right when support for israels Genocide hit a low, Jeffrey Gettleman teamed up with two israeli ex IDF soldiers to write a massive propaganda piece.
Almost every other major Western owned supposedly credible propaganda outlet copy pasted it despite glaring problems being pointed out shortly after its release. Reuters The Guardian, Wapo, You name it and they were manufacturing consent for Genocide. There was no evidence anywhere, but it didn’t matter. Israel got enough public support to start massacring Palestinians again.
This article from The Intercept contained a sentence that summarized it very well: Netanyahu’s War on Truth - Israel’s Ruthless Propaganda Campaign to Dehumanize Palestinians
At the center of Israel’s information warfare campaign is a tactical mission to dehumanize Palestinians and to flood the public discourse with a stream of false, unsubstantiated, and unverifiable allegations.
Reminded me of the dead babies in incubators. What a classic, it’s true that we are in the era of remakes!
Dead babies in incubators you say? That’s the IDF special
Don’t forget about burning babies, another Zionist special!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/05/palestinian-boy-mohammed-abu-khdeir-burned-alive
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/7/31/palestinian-baby-burned-to-death-in-settler-attack
https://mondoweiss.net/2018/06/settlers-celebrate-palestinian/
And putting babies in ovens, something that the Zionists keep accusing Palestinians of doing over and over and over again! (You might have heard this claim now but they have been saying the same thing for decades - repeat a lie often enough and it becomes truth).
Same here, lol. It’s been a long time since the NYT was a reliable news source, especially with regards to anything involving the Middle East.
See this is why I actually hate that people are pushing that bullshit ground news site so hard.
People will become reliant on what it tells them about a publication which does not mean an accurate representation. But then they can parade around bragging they know what the true middle is and are so enlightened.
Plus they take a subscription fee however they have no journalists and don’t pay back to the publications they scrape from, but instead let you follow a link to their site at least to get some revenue.
The run a news link aggregator with a “bias” catcher on it that’s pre-determined by tags for an algorithm to parse. It’s just for libertarians to feel like they are winning against the news I swear.
😭
Gonna go on a slippery slope and say that if they can’t be trusted to properly report on a genocide, their other reported material should also not be held to any decent standard because there is clearly a lack of guidance and internal process to prevent poor media writing.
Not to mention there are so many better sources and OSINT stuff these days. Reuters and AP by themselves already provide the sourcing for most of these media outlets, might as well bypass the paraphrasing and potential for bias.
“Real journalism is publishing something that someone else does not want published; the rest is just public relations.”
Ergo today’s Web and the society as a whole are a death ground for journalism. It’s heavily disadvantaged and has no way of escaping.
Either it fights back successfully or we and our children will get a better understanding of philosophers who lived in despotic empires, like many periods of Chinese, Persian etc history.
The media later: why doesn’t anyone trust us and believe in wild conspiracy theories?
They destroy their own credibility and then cry foul when the extreme right uses this to spread hate propaganda.
It’s worse when it turns out some of the wild conspiracy theories were true all along.
If you lie to people and say Directed Energy Weapons don’t exist, and anyone who thinks they do is a Nazi spouting nonsense about “Jewish Space Lasers”, then people who find out not only do DEWs actually exist (In fact they even have a wikipedia page about them, that’s how blatantly real they are) trust you less, but they’re more likely to buy into really fucked up shit like Holocaust Denial and Flat Earth as they suddenly believe the media was “probably lying about that too!”
“The media”
Yeah “the media” indeed. Not sure how after this immense collaboration from almost every single major newspaper to manufacture consent for israel’s Genocide people still don’t think there’s something fishy going on.
The writer of this article himself just did an interview on The Hill elaborating on this
yes, “the media” seeing as how over 80% of news is owned by the same 3 people, “the media” is very fitting
NYT to reporters: “Please refrain from using language that accurately describes the situation”
“In order to maintain objective journalistic principles!”
This should have been obvious to anyone watching. Their coverage was tripping all over itself to avoid accurate descriptions of the atrocities ongoing in Gaza.
That would be a quality black humor skit. A reporter walks down the street and finds a blow up torso. “This guy must’ve fallen out a window or something”. He continue walking and sees people getting lined up. “Just rounding up some thieves”. As he passes they all get shot. “what was that?”. Add a few more horrific images and eventually the reporter finishes his report with “as you can see, no violence is happening in Gaza”.
Not just them either.
My personal hate is the word “settler”, which invokes an image of somebody taking previously useless land and making it fit for human habitation, but apparently has been redefined within the borders of Palestine to mean “armed invader”.
Don’t hear much about those Russian “settlers” visiting Ukraine…
My personal hate is the word “settler”, which invokes an image of somebody taking previously useless land and making it fit for human habitation, but apparently has been redefined within the borders of Palestine to mean “armed invader”.
North American Natives probably resent that sentence…
It is very rare for no humans to make use of land at all. Whenever someone “settles” it, they are taking it away from someone else. Usually force gets involved at some point, even for nomadic tribes. It’s why colonialism has a bad rep these days.
Regardless of the negative connotations the word should technically have, it’s been sorta green washed. It is a noteworthy term to use when it isn’t applied elsewhere (e.g. Crimea)
Settlers have always been invaders. It’s just that it seems different in this context because we’re watching it happen instead of reading about it in text books
Not always. Settling on empty land is possible. The word settler here comes from “Settler Colonialism”.
It differentiates from an “Extraction Colononialism” because the Settler Colonists try to replace the current inhabitans, instead of just stealing the wealth and enslaving the inhabitants.
It’s just rather unlucky most people use the word "settler"instead of “colonialist” from this term to describe Israelis.
Settling on empty land is possible.
“Empty land” tends to be a consequence of human behaviors. Europeans spreading a plague through North America produced a lot of vacant real estate. Changes in environment - upstream dumping, massacre of native flora and fauna, Chernobyl style disasters - can kill a lot of people in short order and render land vacant.
But the most consistent and heavily practiced method of producing Free Real Estate is by pogrom. Rounding up all the locals and killing them until they leave.
Without that you’re stuck. Any area of the planet that’s habitable was inhabited tens of thousands of years ago, during the last big outward expansion of homo sapiens. Before that, we had near-human populations stretching around the world as far back as 2M years ago.
And that’s not even getting into the volume of mega-fauna and other native life we’ve obliterated during the Holocene Extinction. There is no such thing as “Empty Land” in a material sense. There’s only land that’s relatively easy to push other people off of.
Having read Settlers, I’ve had a much different interpretation of the term since.
Don’t hear much about those Russian “settlers” visiting Ukraine…
I hear it constantly. But its always in a twisted “It was okay when we did it, but these guys are different!” revisionist context.
My personal hate is the word “settler”, which invokes an image of somebody taking previously useless land and making it fit for human habitation, but apparently has been redefined within the borders of Palestine to mean “armed invader”.
That is revisionist history. Settler colonialism isn’t a thing that happened in the distant past, it is an ongoing process that is still going on to this day. What is currently happening in Palestine and Ukraine is an exactly what happened in the lands that you live on. You are a settler living on stolen indigenous lands, which were taken by brutal force no less inhumane and heinously than that being used by the IDF and the Russian state. Fuck off with that “previously useless land” bullshit.
But they’re right that the word “settler” connotes “an image of somebody taking previously useless land” for the average reader. It’s due to ignorance of the grim reality of our history, but it’s nonetheless true.
Oh, the free world at it again.
When a country populated with brown people is too weak, it’s bullied to not arm itself or pursue any other kind of strategically significant development, in economy and society too.
When it’s sufficiently strong and useful not to be bullied, it can do anything up to genocide, and not even have its hand slapped.
I’m becoming too sympathetic to Iran, Hezbollah and all that guerilla-mafia network over time. They look scary, but commit fewer crimes than people condemning them. Naturally “crime” here is not “crime as judged by a court”, but something of the “theft”, “murder”, “torture”, “rape” kind.
When it’s sufficiently strong and useful not to be bullied, it can do anything up to genocide, and not even have its hand slapped.
Idk. I’m looking at Iran right now, and I am under the distinct impression that its about to get hella-bullied.
That said, Iran is aligning itself with a Central Asiatic block of states - China, Pakistan, Iraq, Turkey, maybe Saudi Arabia depending on how things go - that’s going to make it a harder target than in decades past. In much the same way Western conflicts with Russia failed to bring down Vladdy P’s regime, I don’t think simply throwing SWIFT banking sanctions at Iran one more time will do anything to shape their foreign policy or belligerent attitude towards Israel.
I’m becoming too sympathetic to Iran, Hezbollah and all that guerilla-mafia network over time.
Its easy to root for the underdog. I suspect you won’t like them as soon as you see their leaders assuming actual policy-making rules on a global scale. But I also can’t help notice how they’re fighting back against a creeping European fascism in a way we hadn’t seen in the 20th century.
I don’t know if that ends in a new Iron Curtain between the East and West or we go full tilt into WW3. Neither seem particularly good, but the former would see a lot fewer dead children.
In the end, that’s all I can really cheer for. An end to atrocity, and the sooner the better.
WW1 2.0
I agree with most things, but I don’t think Iran’s relations with Turkey and Pakistan are going to become warmer than practical coexistence. Also in Russia that regime was almost supported as something more predictable than imagined communists or neo-nazis.
I don’t think Iran’s relations with Turkey and Pakistan are going to become warmer than practical coexistence.
As the BRI extends through Central Asia, I think you’re going to see a lot more cross-pollination of ethnic groups and business interests. That’s going to bring the block together in the same way rail projects stretching across Europe presaged the EU.
Also in Russia that regime was almost supported as something more predictable than imagined communists or neo-nazis.
The prime mover behind United Russia’s success is the most rapid improvement in living conditions for native Russians since the collapse of the USSR. It isn’t an imagined outside enemy but a very real inside economic boom. And this, despite a collaboration of Western nations to crash the Ruble and bring the Russian war machine to a grinding halt.
I may agree about Central Asia.
I would also like to see Uzbekistan developing and modernizing, as a counterweight to Turkey and a country with no natural enemies (except China, with Uyghurs and Uzbeks being more or less the same people) and big population.
But still Turkey and Pakistan are simply in another block. They may not like Israel, but that doesn’t mean any fundamental split with NATO, West etc.
About Russia - I meant also that before than boom, after Yeltsin’s election of 1996, it was a popular point of view than even if he cheated, the alternative was communists winning that election. And also - it was, yes, very real, but I am not talking about arguments in favor of Putin inside Russia (not persuading everyone, because most of the improvement happened in Moscow, SPb etc), I am talking about Western institutions confirming Russian elections even as massive protests were happening, and also that talking point that if not Putin, then neo-Nazis would win.
But still Turkey and Pakistan are simply in another block. They may not like Israel, but that doesn’t mean any fundamental split with NATO, West etc.
Its been a split that’s widened as Turkey was divided from the EU block and NATO/West interests piled into India after Pakistan kicked out its military dictator, Parvez Musharraf, in 2008. A lot of the post-Cold War alliances have shifted as these military juntas have failed. Egypt would likely be another in the Iran/Iraq/Turkey/Pakistan block if Mohamed Morsi - the replacement for Hosni Mubarak - hadn’t himself been couped back out of power in short order. And you know Qaddafi’s Libya would have been on board, as he’s been a Pan-Africanist since the 70s.
About Russia - I meant also that before than boom, after Yeltsin’s election of 1996, it was a popular point of view than even if he cheated, the alternative was communists winning that election.
Well, the Communist Party did win the referendum in 1992. The cheating and the rapid privatization were what ultimately fractured and collapsed the Soviet party system. Once they no longer had a patronage system to command broad popular support, there was very little incentive (other than ideological orthodoxy) to continue on. But United Russia absorbed more Soviets than just Putin.
The real failure of Communism as an institution came under Brezhnev and Gorbachev, as economic progress stalled relative to the Western peer nations. That, plus the near-total infiltration and privatization denuded the party of its base of support.
If someone came into the US GOP or Dem parties and stripped them of all their donors, their NGOs, and a huge swath of their state/local leadership positions, neither of them would last very long either. But the members of those parties would continue on in some other configuration.
I meant that in 1996 CPRF were the scarecrow and it was said that even if the results were falsified, they shouldn’t be allowed to win the election.
And later instead of CPRF the scarecrow was some poorly-defined neo-Nazis which would come to power if Putin loses the election (implicitly also saying that falsifications are fine to preserve stability or something).
the scarecrow was some poorly-defined neo-Nazis which would come to power if Putin loses the election
I don’t know about “poorly defined”. I think they were pretty explicitly calling liberal candidates outside the United Russia party out as puppets of Berlin and DC. And its not like the Christian Democrats of Germany (much less the modern Greens or the AfD) have done an incredible job of purging fascist ideology from their ranks.
Russians were very rightly worried about getting the Yugoslavia treatment if a liberal reformer came in to further balkinize the state. And say what you will about the Balkins before Tito’s death, but it got inundated with far-right ideology as soon as his corpse was safely six feet under.
I can see pushing to avoid the use of genocide and maybe even ethnic cleansing. But occupied territories? What the fuck else could they be considered?
And for the record, I think Israel’s actions are pretty clearly ethnic cleansing at the very least.
And by UN official statements and standards adopted after the Holocaust: definitional genocide.
But occupied territories? What the fuck else could they be considered?
Well, annexation means giving citizenship, and occupation means avoiding that. By now these people apparently think they hold God by the beard and can avoid the reputational unpleasantness of calling occupation occupation too.
“”“”“settlers”“”“” I think is the term they’re using for the territories being taken. Meaning killing and running off current residents.
“Settlers” is such a euphemism already. What would work better? Interlopers? Invaders? Thieves?
There is a lot of Western guilt about failing the Jewish people in WW2. Seems that this extends to turning a blind eye when it comes to Israel.
Always has been. Zionism and the creation of the state of Israel are intrinsically linked to anti-semitism.
There is a lot of Western guilt about failing the Jewish people in WW2.
Not really. Western ruling elites supported Zionism after WW2 for the exact same reason they supported it before WW2 - to have a place they can dump the (so-called) “Jewish Problem.” The west is no less white supremacist and antisemitic today than they were in 1824 - the west is just desperate to distance itself from the atrocities it’s colonialist logic resulted in during WW2.
The important part is that this distancing shouldn’t prevent the actual mechanisms from working. Deals from being concluded, goods moving, weapons getting where they should. You know, all the old stuff.
Whenever you’re wondering why fake news took off so easilly and swindled so many to believe in complete total bollocks, consider the possibility that “liberal” newsmedia like the New York Times has long been pushing propaganda, weakening trust in the authoritativeness of the Press and in practice plowing the field that far right news outlets sowed.
It would’ve been a lot harder for the likes of Fox News to manipulate the political beliefs of Americans if the likes of the New York Times hadn’t been doing “opinion forming” in favour of specific political idelogies rather than Journalism since well before Fox News came to the scene.
No one is immune from propaganda and just because a media outlet is historically part of “your team,” it doesn’t mean they don’t engage in propaganda. The military and intelligence agencies manipulating the media has been a thing since the beginning of the Cold War.
You seem to be limited in your idea of what is possible by the constraints you live under in the US enviroment, including things like its falacious two-sides politics and the anti-Democratic relationship between most of the Press and the two parties of the Political Duopoly.
It’s perfectly possible for a media outlet to be critical of that which deserves criticism independently of the “side” - it’s what is known as “Journalistic Integrity”. The US. however, has very very little of that.
Also that “it has always been so (in the US)” falacy neither turns it from a bad thing into a good thing nor proves that it’s impossible for it to be otherwise - somehow some news publications in the US (and even more outside) manage to only be biased on occasion instead of being salesmen for a political side in every single news piece they publish.
Ultimatelly it’s up to people to be more demanding with the news, especially those they pay for, and a bit more skeptical. Something as simple as punishing media outlets when they are so shamelessly biased as the NYT by not buying their publications or giving your time to their websites would be a much better push for a decent Press environment than coming up with falacious excuses for their actions.
The new york times approves of the genocide. Why else restrict the use of the word?
They are not making an assertion for or against the actions themselves. They are saying the term “genocide” is not a journalistically appropriate term for the actions. You can obviously disagree with that assertion but they are trying to use terms as neutrally as possible in order to be impartial.
Think of like “pro life” vs “pro choice”, newspapers have to pick words to say, there is a guide where they say what to say about who. Even if they decided to say “pro choice” and “anti abortion” that might indicate political bias but it doesn’t mean they approve of abortions themselves.
Manufacturing consent.
