New York Times Gaza coverage showed bias against Israel, study finds

A study published in the academic journal Studies in Conflict & Terrorism has found that The New York Times’ coverage of the Gaza war exhibited a clear bias against Israel. The research, conducted by Edieal Pinker of the Yale School of Management, analyzed a corpus of 1,559 articles published between October 7, 2023, and June 7, 2024.

Pinker’s findings suggest the publication utilized a narrative that assigned “near-exclusive agency and responsibility to Israel” while minimizing the role of Hamas in sustaining the conflict. The study notes that while the coverage detailed the October 7 attacks and subsequent Palestinian casualties, it frequently omitted Israeli military deaths, Hamas fighter casualties, and instances of Palestinian violence occurring after the initial attack.

The report further highlights a disparity in human interest reporting, stating that personal accounts of Palestinian suffering appeared in approximately two out of every three days of coverage, whereas comparable accounts of Israeli suffering were rarely featured. Pinker argued that this framing ultimately portrayed Israel as the “sole aggressor” in the conflict.