A recent academic study has called into question the impartiality of the New York Times' coverage of the war in Israel, ignited by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023.
The study, conducted by a Yale University professor, suggests that the newspaper's reporting leans towards a pro-Hamas bias.
According to Breitbart, the study was spearheaded by Edieal J. Pinker of the Yale School of Management and is titled "An Analysis of the New York Times Coverage of the War Between Israel and Hamas."
The abstract of the study states, "I conduct a quantitative analysis of the text of 1,561 New York Times articles published from October 7, 2023, to June 7, 2024, that reference both 'Israel' and 'Gaza' to assess whether there are imbalances in the coverage that have a potential to influence readers' opinions about the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in a systematic way."
Pinker's analysis reveals a dominant narrative that frames many of the articles. He notes, "In this narrative, Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th, 2023, killing 1200 Israelis, and Israels military response has killed X thousand Palestinians with X increasing over time." He further points out that the coverage often omits mention of Israeli casualties post-October 7 or of Palestinian acts of violence during the same period, despite the intense combat between Israel and Hamas over the eight months of the study period.
The study also highlights that the term "Israel" is mentioned more than three times as often as "Hamas". Furthermore, personal stories of Palestinian or Lebanese suffering appear an average of two out of every three days, while it is common to go a week at a time without a single mention of IDF deaths, even when such deaths were frequent.
Pinker argues that these imbalances result in a depiction of events that leans towards creating sympathy for the Palestinian side, places most of the agency in the hands of Israel, and often contradicts actual events. He contends that this skewed representation fails to give readers an understanding of how Israelis are experiencing the war.
The Jerusalem Post adds to the conversation, noting that Pinker's study dismisses the argument that the reason "Israel" appears more is because the Jewish State has "more independence than the Palestinians and thus will have more freedom of action." Pinker counters this argument by pointing out that if this were the case, there would be less of an imbalance in the ratio of mentions of Hezbollah and Iran. However, the data indicated the imbalance was the same.
This study is not the first to call out pro-Hamas bias in mainstream media outlets. The BBC, for instance, has been criticized for pro-Hamas bias and for violating its own editorial standards over 1,500 times. The BBC, however, claimed that the study reaching these conclusions was itself biased.
Joel B. Pollak, Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot, is a vocal critic of media bias. He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, and The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trumps Presidency. He is also a recipient of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship.
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