NY Times’ Oct. 7 war coverage ‘distorted, imbalanced’ – Study

Data analysis finds that the New York Times presented Palestinian death statistics without mentioning Hamas terrorists killed battling IDF troops, glossed over murders of Israeli civilians in terror attacks and bombings.

By World Israel News Staff

A data analyses of some 1,500 articles about the October 7 massacres and subsequent Israel-Hamas war published by the New York Times revealed that the media outlet presented a narrative to its readership that downplayed Israeli suffering and focused little on Hamas atrocities.

The study was conducted independently by Edieal Pinker, a professor and deputy dean at the Yale School of Management, and published in SSRN, a journal for research papers that have not yet undergone peer review.

“Little mention is made of Israeli casualties post-October 7 or of Palestinian acts of violence post-October 7, even as Israel and Hamas were locked in intensive combat over the eight months of the study period,” the study said, according to a Times of Israel summary.

Ninety-one percent of the articles published by the Times on the conflict did not mention Israeli casualties sustained after October 7, glossing over the fact that dozens of civilians were murdered in terror attacks and by Hezbollah and Hamas bombings.

“The reporting does not give the reader a full understanding of how the war is being experienced by Israelis,” the study said.

The study also noted that only 10% of articles published by the outlet specified that Hamas fighters were killed during battles with Israeli troops, though they mentioned the deaths of Palestinians.

There were more than 10 weeks in which no Times articles acknowledged Hamas members fighting Israel, giving readers the impression that all reported Palestinian deaths were of civilians.

In a statement to the Times of Israel, the New York Times defended its reporting of the war.

A spokesman from the outlet claimed that the newsppaer had “covered this war with more rigor than virtually any other U.S. news organization, reporting on the conflict from all angles,” claiming it had published reports on “previously unknown details about the atrocities committed by Hamas” and the “ferocious military campaign led by the Israeli government.”

The newspaper also claimed that their “editors make careful and deliberate choices about every story we publish to ensure our language, framing, prominence and tone remain true to our mission of independent journalism.”

Notably, the Times statement did not directly acknowledge or address any of the data-based points around its coverage that were highlighted in the study.