New York Times' framing of Israel-Hamas war 'imbalanced,' lacked Israeli perspectives: study - National Post
Relatives and friends attend the funeral of Alexander Lobanov, whose body was among six recovered from the Gaza Strip where Israeli hostages were being held by Hamas terrorists since October 7, 2023, at the Ashkelon cemetery in southern Israel on September 1, 2024. Photo by Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty ImagesArticle contentThe New York Times’ framing of the Israel-Hamas war is “imbalanced” with “sparse” reporting of Israeli casualties or Israeli suffering after October 7, according to a new study.
“I was not surprised by the direction of the findings but rather the magnitudes,” the study’s author Edieal Pinker told National Post in a written statement.
“For example, the fact that Israeli military casualties were mentioned so infrequently and were not regularly tracked as part of the basic context of the reporting was a bit shocking to me. Likewise, the fact that two out of every three days had an article that mentioned a personal story of a Palestinian or Lebanese civilian suffering was more than I had anticipated.”
The study, How the New York Times Framed the War Between Israel and Hamas, was published on Sept. 7 in the journal Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. Pinker, a Yale School of Management professor, analyzed 1,559 news articles from Oct. 7, 2023 — when Hamas sparked a war by killing 1,200 people in Israel, including those at the Nova music festival, and taking 251 hostages — until June 7, 2024.
Columnist Jesse Kline keeps you up to date with what’s happening in Israel and the effects of antisemitism on life here in Canada. Friday mornings.
A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.
The next issue of Channel Israel will soon be in your inbox.
We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again
He told National Post that as a consumer of both U.S. and Israeli news, he was “struck by the difference in the perception of the war.” In particular, he noted how the “human element of the Israeli experience was missing in the mainstream U.S. media.”
Abandoned and burned vehicles at the site of the October 7 Hamas attack on the Nova Festival, near Kibbutz Reim in the Negev desert in southern Israel, Oct. 13, 2023. Photo by Jack Guez/AFP via Getty ImagesArticle contentIn the study, he writes that the imbalances in coverage “create sympathy for the Palestinian people while at the same time diminishing Hamas’ responsibility for their situation and the continuation of the war.”
The Times largely depicts Israel as being the “sole aggressor” following the October 7 attack.
“Palestinians are portrayed as passive victims whose suffering grows daily as they are relentlessly attacked by the Israeli military,” writes Pinker, adding that framing the war in this context “offers a distorted view of the conflict.”
Of the articles identified as having to do with the conflict in the Middle East most directly, the study found less than four per cent had an “account of an Israeli’s struggles post October 7.”
