NEW YORK (Dispatches) – A new dossier released by a coalition of media workers has accused The New York Times of systemic pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian bias, and alleged that nearly two dozen of its top journalists, editors and executives have extensive ties to pro-Israel lobbying groups.
“The New York Times is an accomplice to the genocide in Gaza, serving as a mouthpiece for American imperialism and shaping elite consensus around foreign policy,” a statement from the group Writers Against the War on Gaza (Wawog) reads.
Like several mainstream news outlets, the NYT has come under intense scrutiny over its reporting of the war on Gaza, with several human rights activists and analysts accusing the publication of providing cover for Israeli war crimes.
The dossier argues that the NYT’s coverage could be explained by the extensive material, financial and ideological connections between several current and former employees at the paper and the Israeli regime or the army.
The dossier also outlined other levels of ideological and material ties, including relationships with the pro-Israel lobbying groups and think tanks.
The dossier asserts that news editors at the NYT had ordered reporters to avoid so-called “inflammatory terms” - including “genocide”, “ethnic cleansing”, and “occupied territory”, and even to avoid saying “Palestine”.
“Our dossier so far covers mostly material ties to occupation and apartheid, but we also include and discuss ideological ties, which we’ve updated the dossier to reflect,” a spokesperson for Wawog told Middle East Eye.
The group said its findings, extracted from the archives of Mondoweiss and The Electronic Intifada, as well as through interviews with Palestinian journalists, demonstrate “how the Times’ vaunted code of conduct amounts to a racist double standard”.
Wawog, a group made up of writers and creatives, emerged in the weeks following the Zionist regime’s bombardment of Gaza after the operation on southern parts of Israeli-occupied territories on October 7, 2023.
The group has routinely held protests outside and at times in the lobby of the NYT’s building in the borough of Manhattan.