New York Times bias

Tom Gross has written a long and thorough dissection of how the Paper of Record spins the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is no trivial matter, as the NY Times is no ordinary newspaper:

The Times's distorted presentation of events is especially troubling given the very high respect in which the paper is generally held by its readership, policymakers, and other members of the media. The Times's framing of the conflict has for years contributed to bad diplomacy at the State Department and elsewhere, and has fueled negative images of Israel among the public at large. As I know from personal experience working as a correspondent in the Middle East for both American and European papers, foreign news editors throughout the world often look to the Times for story ideas. Every evening, editors across America check the next day's front-page stories on the New York Times before altering their lineups. . .

Today the New York Times is held in as high regard as ever. (Last year it won a record seven Pulitzer Prizes.) But it isn't doing a very good job when it comes to the Middle East. The distortions of the media are depressing not only because they are untrue, but because they set back the day when there might be peace and coexistence between Israeli and Palestinian.

Liberals like myself want to see two democratic states coexisting in peace. But we have also followed the conflict closely enough to know that the Western media's misreporting has contributed to the failed policies of both American and European diplomats.

Posted by David on March 15, 2003 6:45 PM