Andrew Stiles and Andrew Tobin write for the Washington Free Beacon about more evidence of journalism’s decline.
Mainstream journalists and other Democratic activists have cast the alarming rise in anti-Semitism as a regrettable but unavoidable part of modern decolonial resistance by any means necessary, with media reports explaining that what may sound like the genocidal rantings of terrorists sympathizers are actually just aspirational calls for peaceful coexistence.
But a review of a recent New York Times article suggests the dishonesty of the mainstream journalism published in the wake of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel is without precedent. Journalistic efforts to portray the Jewish state’s campaign to eradicate those terrorists as historically monstrous, experts say, are historically incompetent.
The Times front page on Sunday featured an article headlined, “Big Bombs in Urban Areas Raise Civilian Toll in Gaza.” Written by London-based visual editor Lauren Leatherby, the story uses slick charts and big numbers to depict Israel’s war on Hamas, the terrorist organization that murdered more than 1,200 Israelis in one day, as the most barbaric military campaign of the 21st century.
“That story is despicable,” one of the most acclaimed experts on military history and journalistic accuracy told the Washington Free Beacon. “Turns out the Israel Defense Force has killed very few Hamas fighters, but killed historically high numbers of women and children, according to Hamas. And the New York Times publishes this and expects everyone just to buy it.” (Crucial context: Hamas is one of the most horrific purveyors of anti-Semitic brutality in modern history.)
Indeed, the story is based almost entirely on unconfirmed statistics provided by the Gaza Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas. Nevertheless, the Times persisted in reporting the figures as fact, citing anonymous “international officials and experts” who vouched for the “generally reliable” Hamas data czars.
