New York Times to Reporters: Avoid ‘Genocide’ and ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ for Gaza War

The New York Times asked journalists covering Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip to limit their use of the terms “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” and to “avoid” using the phrase “occupied territories” when describing Palestinian land.

The memo also instructs journalists not to use the word Palestine “except in very rare cases” and to avoid the term “refugee camps” to describe areas of Gaza historically inhabited by displaced Palestinians expelled from other parts of Palestine during of the previous Israeli-Arab war.

The memo, reported by The Intercept, “offers guidance on certain terms and other issues we have been grappling with since the conflict began in October.”

While the document is presented as an outline for maintaining objective journalistic principles in reporting on the Gaza war, several Times employees told The Intercept that the paper favors the Israelis’ narrative.

“It seems professional and reasonable if you don’t know the historical context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” a Times source, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said of the Gaza memo. “But if you know it, it’s clear how very one-sided pro-Israel it is.”

WhatsApp chats

Tensions began almost immediately after the October 7 attacks and the start of Israel’s war on Gaza. Some employees said the paper went out of its way to support Israel’s narrative of events and did not apply ethical rules in its coverage.

Disagreements also began to flare up on Whats App, particularly in the Jerusalem bureau team, which at one point included 90 journalists and editors, became so heated that the international editor intervened.

The topics that ignited the fire according to The Intercept were the Israeli attacks on Al-Shifa hospital, statistics on the deaths of Palestinian civilians, allegations of genocidal behavior by Israel and President Joe Biden’s system of promoting unverified claims by Israeli government.

Words like “Slaughter”

The New York Times directive includes several phrases and terms “The nature of the conflict has led to inflammatory language and accusations from all sides. We should be very careful about using such language, even in quotation marks. Our goal is to provide clear, accurate information, and these expressions can often obscure rather than clarify a fact… Words like “slaughter” and “carnage” often convey more emotion than information. Think carefully before using them,” the instruction says.