Image by Jakayla Toney.

The United States government has been the primary enabler of the genocide perpetrated by the Israeli war machine against the Palestinian people of Gaza. It has provided essentially unlimited military support and diplomatic cover since October 7, and an important factor in allowing that to occur has been the role played by the mainstream media, whose coverage of Israel-Palestine has been so biased and misleading that it has kept many Americans ignorant about the meaning of the events in the Middle East.

In this article we will examine a recent episode of The Daily, a podcast produced by The New York Times. On February 26, 2025 it presented an interview with Jerusalem Bureau chief Patrick Kingsley about the end of the first phase of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire and the prospects for the future. The episode is instructive in that the Times’ bias is revealed clearly in how it dehumanizes Palestinians, conceals the power imbalance between the two parties, whitewashes war crimes, misrepresents ceasefires and other peace efforts, and erases the historical context.

Much has been written about the American mainstream media’s pro-Israel bias, especially since October 7.

An analysis by The Intercept examined the coverage of Gaza in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post. It found that in the first six weeks after the October 7 attack, these outlets used terms like “slaughter” or “massacre” nearly 200 times when referring to the killing of Israelis, but only five times in reference to Palestinians. This stark contrast in language occurred even as the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli attacks had already reached 20 times the number of Israelis killed in the Hamas attack.

In April of 2024, The Intercept revealed a leaked internal memo from The New York Times that provided editorial guidance to its journalists covering the Israel-Hamas conflict. The memo instructed reporters to avoid using terms such as “genocide,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “occupied territory” when describing Palestinian land. Additionally, it advised against using the term “Palestine” except in very rare cases and recommended steering clear of the phrase “refugee camps” to describe areas in Gaza historically settled by displaced Palestinians. In addition, the memo claims that words like “slaughter,” “massacre” and “carnage” are often too emotional to describe Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. Ironically, the stated purpose of the memo was to issue “guidance like this to ensure accuracy, consistency and nuance in how we cover the news,” as a Times spokesman told The Intercept.

Protests against both the genocide and Western support for it have succeeded in bringing the topic of Israel-Palestine to light, and Americans........

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