Gaza -- NYT’s War on Words

NYT’s War on Words

New York Times editors issued a memo to staffers that warned against the use of “inflammatory language and incendiary accusations on all sides”—but the instructions offered by the memo, which was leaked to the Intercept (4/15/24), seemed designed to dampen criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza and to reinforce the Israeli narrative of the conflict. Among the terms the memo told Times reporters to avoid: “Palestine” (“except in very rare cases”), “occupied territories” (say “Gaza, the West Bank, etc.”) and “refugee camps” (“refer to them as neighborhoods, or areas”). These are all standard terms: “Palestine” is the name of a state recognized by the United Nations and 140 of its 193 members. The “occupied territories” are the way Gaza and the West Bank are referred to by the UN as well as the United States. “Refugee camps” are what they are called by the UN agency that administers the eight camps in Gaza.

‘Heated Language’ Just Right in ‘Particular Situations’

 “Our goal is to provide clear, accurate information, and heated language can often obscure rather than clarify the fact,” said the New York Times memo on Gaza coverage (Intercept, 4/15/24). “Words like ‘slaughter,’ ‘massacre’ and ‘carnage’ often convey more emotion than information. Think hard before using them in our own voice.” The memo asked, “Can we articulate why we are applying those words to one particular situation and not another?” As FAIR (4/17/24) noted in a new study, the Times does apply “heated language” in a decidedly lopsided manner. When Times articles used the word “brutal” to describe a party in the Gaza conflict, 73% of the time it was used to characterize Palestinians. An analysis by the Intercept (1/9/24) of Gaza crisis coverage in the Times (as well as the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal) found that “horrific” was used by reporters and editors nine times as often to describe the killing of Israelis rather than Palestinians; “slaughter” described Israelis deaths 60 times more than Palestinian deaths, and “massacre” more than 60 times.

EXTRA! The Newsletter of FAIR—The Media Watch Group June/July 2024 Vol. 37, No. 5