Gaza war: NYT tells journalists to avoid words ‘genocide’, ‘ethnic cleansing’

WEB DESK: American news organisation The Intercept has obtained an internal memo of the The New York Times providing guidance to its journalists regarding the choice of words when covering the Gaza War.

The memo, which was disturbed in November advised them to limit the use of terms like “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing”.

The memo, authored by Times standards editor Susan Wessling, international editor Philip Pan, and their deputies, provides guidance on certain terms and other issues that have been debated since the onset of the conflict in October.

Although the document is portrayed as a framework for upholding objective journalistic standards in covering the war, according to some Times employees who spoke to The Intercept, certain elements within it indicate the newspaper’s inclination towards favouring Israeli narratives.

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“I think it’s the kind of thing that looks professional and logical if you have no knowledge of the historical context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” said a NYT source while commenting on the memo.