NYT guidelines for Gaza bar journos from saying ‘genocide’: Report

News Desk - The Cradle

Pro-Palestinian voices have faced heavy censorship from broadcast to social media since October

A leaked internal memo from The New York Times (NYT) told its journalists to refrain from using the words “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” and to avoid using “occupied territory” when referring to Palestine, The Intercept reported on 15 April.

The investigative outlet reported that the memo instructed NYT journalists to “not 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 displaced Palestinians expelled from other parts of Palestine during previous Israeli–Arab wars.”

The Intercept revealed that the memo was written by editors Susan Wessling and Philip Pan and their deputies. Several journalists from the legacy newspaper told The Intercept that some of the memo’s “contents show evidence of the paper’s deference to Israeli narratives.”

“I think it’s the kind of thing that looks professional and logical if you have no knowledge of the historical context of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict,” a NYT newsroom source speaking on the condition of anonymity said. “But if you do know, it will be clear how apologetic it is to Israel.”

Another anonymous newsroom source told The Intercept, “It’s not unusual for news companies to set style guidelines … But there are unique standards applied to violence perpetrated by Israel. Readers have noticed and I understand their frustration.”

Multiple news outlets over the past few months and years have either heavily watered down or outright censored the Palestinian cause from their reporting.

In November, The Breach reported that Bell Media, the multi-billion dollar Canadian media conglomerate that runs CTV, BNN Bloomberg, and Toronto’s CP24, had also told journalists to refrain from using the word “Palestine.”

“While Palestine has observer status at the United Nations, Palestine as a nation does not currently exist. Please use Gaza or the Israeli-Occupied West Bank for a geographic locator,” an internal memo obtained by The Breach read.

It told journalists to use “Hamas and Hamas militants” when referring to the Palestinian government and to ensure the mention that Hamas “has been declared a terrorist group by Canada and many other Western Nations.”

Social media has also been riddled with the censorship of Palestinian voices. Human Rights Watch (HRW), in a report released last year, stated that “Meta’s policies and practices have been silencing voices in support of Palestine and Palestinian human rights on Instagram and Facebook in a wave of heightened censorship of social media.”

HRW’s report adds that “Between October and November 2023 … over 1,050 takedowns and other suppression of content Instagram and Facebook that had been posted by Palestinians and their supporters, including about human rights abuses.” 

A report published in November last year by Forbes showed the heavy censorship that would be a trend six months into Israel’s war on Gaza.

The report noted that Israel sent roughly 9,500 requests to Meta and Tiktok since 7 October to remove content that paints Israel in a negative light. Around 94 percent of the content was deleted.