Media Watch 5 September 2025
An Israeli attack on Gaza City on 5 September collapses a residential building as the destruction and genocide continue.
Xinhua News AgencyNearly two years into the Gaza genocide, The New York Times is failing to convey to its readers the enormity of what is happening to Palestinians.
On 30 August (the online publication date), in an article about the Venice International Film Festival and organizing there on behalf of Gaza, the newspaper claimed that 39,000 people in Gaza had been killed as of July.
“In July, the enclave’s health ministry said that more than 39,000 people had been killed, a toll that does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. And this month, a group of global experts said that Gaza City and the surrounding territory were officially suffering from famine.”
But that 39,000 figure is from July of 2024.
In fact, according to the health ministry in Gaza, over 63,000 Palestinians had been killed when The New York Times article was published. The official death toll was updated to more than 64,000 a few days later.
I requested a correction on 2 September after I first read the article. Pro-Israel media-monitoring organizations such as CAMERA and HonestReporting did not appear to be seized by the matter with the latter clearly looking past the error on the number of Palestinians killed.
The New York Times appended this correction to the article the next day: “An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the Gaza health ministry’s death toll. The ministry recently put the figure at more than 60,000 people, not over 39,000.”The correction run on 4 September on the corrections page reads: “An article on Monday about a pro-Palestinian demonstration that took place during the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on Saturday misstated the death toll cited by the Gaza health ministry. The ministry recently put the figure at more than 60,000 people, not over 39,000.”
Even the correction knowingly erases some 3,000 Palestinians killed. The number slain during the Israeli-administered genocide at the time of original publication was over 63,000.
In the chaos of Gaza as institutions are destroyed and people are buried in the rubble, it is worth noting that some estimates of the casualty figures go far higher.
Genocide
The newspaper of record – as opposed to The Washington Post – also appeared very reluctant to devote much attention to the resolution passed on 31 August by the International Association of Genocide Scholars that declares Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza.Just two paragraphs were devoted to the issue on 1 September by The New York Times.
First, the newspaper noted, “On Monday, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, a leading group of academic experts on the topic, declared that Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza met the legal definition of genocide.”
Then, in a longer sentence, the Israeli foreign ministry was given space to rebut the charge.
“A spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry denounced the conclusion as ‘an embarrassment to the legal profession,’ adding in a statement that it was ‘entirely based on Hamas’ campaign of lies and the laundering of those lies by others.’”
Historian Assal Rad noted the shortcomings of the reporting by The New York Times, highlighting the absence of headlines or a dedicated story focusing on the fact Israel is committing genocide.
As award-winning investigative journalist Laila Al-Arian writes of The New York Times: “They’ll be remembered for minimizing genocide, normalizing Palestinian death and whitewashing Israel’s atrocities.”Further bias can be seen in a New York Times article published shortly before publication of this article.
Liam Stack writes that “the war began after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel, in which roughly 1,200 were killed and 250 more taken hostage.”
Stack employs the term “terror attack,” but at no point references Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.
He did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Electronic Intifada regarding bias at the newspaper.
Comments
subscribers or monkeys?
Permalink Peter Purich replied on
Does the New York Times thinks this genocide apologia will bloodwash and keep the subscribers ignorant? After 2 years?? Or does the New York Times want to be like the "The Three Mystic Apes" ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
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