The organization HonestReporting awarded the The New York Times the winner of the 2013 Dishonest Reporting Award. According to a statement released by HonestReporting on its website, the award was best summed up in a one line email: “The NY Times bludgeoned Israel all year.” Runners up for the award included the BBC, CNN, and Haaretz.
HonestReporting is an organization dedicated to monitoring the treatment of Israel by international media and ensuring fair standards are applied to reporting about Israel. According to one of their guiding principles, HonestReporting believes that “biased coverage of Israel distorts the public’s understanding of Israel and its motives and creates an obstacle to a peaceful resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.” Media coverage must me “accurate, balanced, transparent, and ethical” and it is the responsibility of publishers and editors to correct distorted information.
The Times is one of the most influential newspapers in the United States. The second most visited news website in the world, the Times has millions of global followers. The reach, influence, and power of the words printed by the Times are immeasurable. What tipped the balance this year for the Times was its coverage glorifying Palestinian stone-throwers as heroes, editorials that mocked Israeli fears of a nuclear Iran, and opinion pieces that blatant anti-Semitism and questioned Israel’s right to exist.
In March, the cover story for the New York Times Magazine glorified Palestinian protestors at Nabi Saleh. The caption on the cover stated “If there is a third intifada, we want to be the ones who started it.” The article was accompanied by an online photo slideshow entitled “The Resisters.” In August, the Times published again a glowing report on the violent action of child stone-throwers, referring to their acts as “a rite of passage and an honored act of defiance.”
Over two dozen op-eds, staff editorials, and “professional” analyses trashed Benjamin Netanyahu and dismissed Netanyahu’s fears regarding a nuclear Iran. The Times also added a well known anti-Israel conspiracy theorist to its editorial board, Egyptian writer Alaa Al Aswany. Ending the year off with a bang, one of the greatest flubs of the Times was its coverage of the fatal stabbing of 18 year old Israeli soldier Eden Atias by a Palestinian terrorist. Instead of showing a picture of Atias or his family, the image presented was a sympathetic photo of the terrorist’s mother.
In 2012, HonestReporting published a study that covered twelve months on in depth analysis of Times coverage regarding Israel. Analyzing almost 100 editorials, op-eds, and columns, the results of the study were startling. 80 percent of all Times editorials about Israel or Israeli policy were critical of the state. Out of 63 columns and op-eds, “43 were directly critical of Israel, either in general, with regards to the settlements, or concerning Iran.” When it came to opinion pieces, just over 2 percent were supportive of Israel.
