The Decline of Impartiality at The New York Times and the Growing Bias in Reporting

Since February 1897 The New York Times has been using the slogan "All the News That's Fit to Print.” The slogan was meant to convey that the newspaper was committed to impartial reporting.

And when I was a youngster that was true. News articles reported just the facts and left opinionizing to its columnists and editorial writers. Today, the “paper of record” is a print version of the cable channels Fox News and MSNBC, slanting much of its reporting to agree with its editorial opinion.

The primary distinction between The New York Times and cable networks lies in its inclusion of conservative op-ed columnists—David Brooks, Ross Douthat, and Bret Stephens—who often present views that counter the liberal editorial stance. However, their perspectives are overshadowed by frequent contributions from staff and “guest” op-ed writers, as well as the publication's "non-partisan" focus on two dominant topics: “woke” culture and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

According to Wikipedia, “woke is the African-American English synonym for the General American English word awake, and has since the 1930s or earlier been used to refer to awareness of social and political issues affecting African Americans, often in the construction stay woke. There’s no doubt that much of the paper’s reporting is “woke.”

But the most obvious slanting of reporting is the Times coverage of the Israeli-Hamas situation.

Only people who refuse to acknowledge the obvious think that the Times’ coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian situation is impartial. For years, the coverage has featured many more Op-Ed columns by “guest” contributors who oppose Israel than those who support Israel.

And since the beginning of the current Israeli-Hamas war, its supposedly impartial news pages have had frequent articles about the suffering of Palestinians, with minimum coverage about the agony of Israelis. The number of such articles, many beginning on page one, are too numerous to mention. A recent example was a page one article, with a picture of Palestinian youngster who lost an arm, in the Times’ Nov. 25 edition. It continued on pages 9-12, and on the following day with coverage extended over two pages.

After the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israeli by Hamas, minor coverage was provided by the Times that Hezbollah joined Hamas, resulting in more than 60,000 Israelis having to move from their homes near the Lebanese border. Bu when Israel began fighting back, much was made about how Lebanese residents had to leave their homes near the border.

When on Nov. 26, it was announced that a cease fire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah was imminent, the Times’s slanted reporting continued. It quoted, U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq saying that the “U.N.’s peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, and the U.N.’s special coordinator for Lebanon stand ready to enforce" a cease-fire. He added that the U.N. was “seriously concerned” about the heavy Israeli bombardment campaign currently unfolding in Lebanon.” Missing from the reporting was the fact that Hezbollah was still firing at Israel.

A glaring example of Times' perceived anti-Israel bias is evident in its supposedly impartial news articles and the photographs that accompany them. Throughout the year, images of Palestinians significantly outnumber those of Israelis, creating the impression that the publication operates as a propaganda arm for Hamas. A striking instance occurred on November 30, with an article about residents on both sides of the Lebanese border. The single photo chosen depicted damage on the Lebanese side, despite Hezbollah’s ongoing missile attacks on Israel since the war began on October 7, 2023.

Readers of my previous columns about the Times coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian situation know that I think that the Times coverage is one-sided and that the student demonstrations against Israeli at various colleges was reported to give the impression that it was widespread, when in actuality it wasn’t what the Times reported.

“Are Gaza Protests Happening Mostly at Elite Colleges?  Yup. The Washington Monthly runs the numbers and explains the results,” said a detailed article by Robert Kelchen and Marc Novicoff, on May 24, 2024.  

The article said, in part, “Many of the most high-profile protests have occurred at highly selective colleges, like Columbia University. But since the national media is famously obsessed with these schools and gives far less attention to the thousands of other colleges where most Americans get their postsecondary educations, it’s hard to know how widespread the campus unrest has really been.  

“We at the Washington Monthly tried to get to the bottom of this question: Have pro-Palestinian protests taken place disproportionately at elite colleges, where few students come from lower-income families? The answer is a resounding yes.”

And a May 3-6, 2024, article by Axios reported “that College protests against Israel's war in Gaza are dominating headlines. But only a sliver of students are participating or view it as a top issue, according to a new Generation Lab survey shared exclusively with Axios.” The survey revealed that “Only a small minority (8%) of college students have participated in either side of the protests, the survey of 1,250 college students found.”

Political beliefs aside about the Israeli-Palestinian situation, there is one lesson that both pro and anti-Israelis PR practitioners should remember: When doing research for a program or speech, check several articles for facts, because so-called “experts” have different opinions. And then quote them correctly, because an opinion is not a fact.

As the New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said many years ago, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”