Under-reported rape: Why the NYT's war coverage is unfair and heartbreaking

The humanitarian situation in Gaza was obsessively covered by The New York Times without mentioning Hamas’s looting, Qatar’s sponsorship was avoided in the context of campus protests, and the grand investigation into barbaric rape cases received only minor attention.

The coverage of the war in The New York Times can be called infuriating, outrageous, or unfair, but the truth is that it is mostly heartbreaking. This is just another reason why the hearts of Israelis have been breaking again and again since October 7 and during this war. From October 7 to today, criticism of Hamas in the Times has almost completely disappeared.

Israel is not understood. It is hard to contain the wave of anti-Israel sentiment that rose against us on October 7 and has now reached arrest warrants for Israeli leaders in The Hague. We remember exactly what happened here almost eight months ago, and we know that the wave of hatred did not start with Israeli actions in Gaza. It started the day a horrific massacre and mass kidnapping took place here, and since then our hearts have been breaking a little more each time.

Last week, I published the enormous gaps between the level of criticism directed at Israel in the first seven months of the war in the Times and the scant criticism directed at Hamas. I also published the mirror image: the overflowing empathy towards the Palestinians compared to the scant empathy towards the Israelis, including the abductees.

This week, I will focus on the extent of coverage dedicated to different angles of the war, which also suffered from unreasonable imbalance. Sometimes the coverage of certain topics was so obsessive that it created a new reality instead of reflecting the existing one. For example, 172 headlines dealt with the humanitarian situation in Gaza, but none of them mentioned Hamas fighters taking over and looting aid trucks.

In comparison to the great concern for the Palestinians, only seven articles addressed the damage caused to northern settlements or the Israeli evacuees. There is no doubt that the Palestinians suffer more, but does that justify such a minor focus on the suffering of Israelis, at a ratio of 24 to 1?

Many issues are treated this way: intensive and repetitive reporting on what happens to the Palestinians, alongside a small check-mark in one or two articles, if at all, regarding what happens to Israelis. Do seven articles out of 1,398, with most of the attention dedicated to the Palestinians’ situation, allow for an understanding of both sides in the conflict?

Apart from the seven articles on damage and evacuees, the entire fighting in the north received only 13 articles in total, some of which were dedicated to reports on the Lebanese and Syrian sides. This means that the front in the north almost did not receive systemic attention. This week, the number of sirens in the north exceeded the number of sirens in the south since October 7, but many issues that Israelis have been experiencing for many months were minimized or completely ignored in the reporting.

Rape is not an opinion

The greatest disappointment with the Times lies in its handling of the barbaric rape that occurred in Israel on the day of the massacre. Initially, it seemed promising – on December 28, the Times published a comprehensive, well-researched, and detailed investigation into the brutal rapes, most of whose victims were murdered. After the global community’s disgraceful neglect, these victims finally found a voice. The investigation included testimonies that had previously shaken Israeli society to its core.

Although the Times was not the first to expose the rapes, it was the first to publish an in-depth investigation on the subject, which garnered widespread acclaim. The exposure is estimated to have reached 10 million readers and a thousand mentions in other media outlets. On the day of publication, editor-in-chief Joe Kahn sent an email to the entire staff, praising the investigation as the “flagship” of war coverage and commending the team for handling such a “sensitive and political” topic with “sensitivity and detail.” It’s doubtful he knew how right he was. Quite quickly, it became clear that, for many within the organization, rape was not viewed as a barbaric and reprehensible crime but rather as a political issue.

Ultimately, the issue of rape appeared in the Times’ major headlines only seven times, even though it was a central and shocking event. Four of the seven references were within opinion pieces, three of which were written by Bret Stephens, the newspaper’s only pro-Israeli opinion writer.

Even Sheryl Sandberg’s documentary on the rapes was not published as a news headline but only as an opinion piece, as if the rapes were a pro-Israeli matter of opinion. In the news headlines, the issue of rape appeared once in the significant and brave interview with the former captive Amit Soussana and once more in a headline about the UN report published in early March. This concluded the coverage of the rape.

The seventh mention of the topic was in an article that seemingly contradicted one of the testimonies published in the investigation. In the original report, an elite IDF 669 fighter testified that he clearly saw the bodies of two girls who had been raped in Kibbutz Be’eri. However, in the seventh article, it was reported that the kibbutz announced that the only two girls whose bodies were found after the massacre had not been raped. Beyond that, there was no mention of the chaotic day of October 7 or the likelihood that the shocked fighter might not have fully remembered whether he saw the girls in Kibbutz Be’eri, Nahal Oz, or another kibbutz, as he fought in several kibbutzim that day, and the bodies, as is known, were numerous.

It is strange that the investigation itself was not included in the day’s major headlines within the Today’s Headlines newsletters. This omission is perplexing since all major headlines are included in these newsletters, certainly a headline that topped the front page.

A possible explanation is that after the significant storm the investigation caused upon its publication, the pro-Palestinian propagandists were horrified. They feared a severe blow to their narrative and began attacking the Times for publishing the investigation, starting from within. Several Times journalists claimed “professional flaws” and leaked them to radical websites that tried to undermine the journalistic work with a coordinated digital lynch.

Subsequently, progressive journalism lecturers were also recruited, who appealed to the Times to re-examine the article’s accuracy, an unprecedented step never taken by journalism lecturers regarding a single article. So why specifically here?

THE STRUGGLE WITHIN the Times over the rape investigation was covered by dozens of media outlets for months. It was accompanied by an internal investigation to find the leakers, by threats from the workers’ committee claiming that the internal investigation was persecuting journalists of “Middle Eastern” origin, and finally, the whole saga was silenced and ended with nothing. The only one harmed by the storm was the Israeli reporter who worked on the investigation. Originally recruited to cover sex crimes, she was fired when it was revealed that she had “liked” a tweet supporting Israel on October 7. The firing went quietly; no one thought it was scandalous or outrageous.

The initial intention was to submit the magnificent investigation for the Pulitzer Prize, but eventually, seven other articles were submitted, six of which criticized Israel. The assumption is that the Times simply succumbed to the progressive attack – it did not want to risk the award in light of the outrageous wave of criticism against the supposedly “political” investigation. Instead of courageously standing by and revealing the truth, the newspaper likely chose to submit articles that would better fit the place where the prize is awarded – the Columbia University School of Journalism.

Downplaying the intensity

Consider the coverage given to a single incident: the shooting of three Palestinian-American students in Vermont. This case, which may not even have been a specific hate crime against Palestinians, was thoroughly covered from every angle. Neighbors and relatives were interviewed, every development in the investigation was closely followed, and all of this was featured in the day’s top headlines.

The Times tends to avoid using charged or harsh words, but here too, there is a lack of proportion. The word “rape” appeared in only three headlines out of 1,398 since the war began. In contrast, the word “genocide” appeared 22 times in the context of Israel (and once more in the context of Jews in campus protests). The word “starvation” appeared 13 times, and “famine” appeared 17 more times. The fact is that the rapes actually happened, while starvation and genocide are unfounded accusations. So why aren’t these terms considered political?

Of all the collective events we experienced as Israelis, the way the Iranian attack on April 14 was reported was the most heartbreaking. This shocking event was given 15 headlines, but only three of them described that night, and they were phrased in a laconic manner as if it were an audiovisual show. None mentioned the number of missiles and drones, nor did any reflect the drama of the attack that threw the entire country into a dystopian panic.

The remaining headlines were cold analyses, either military, political, or global, balancing “both sides” and offering various recommendations on the restrained manner in which Israel should or should not respond. The only empathetic headline referred to a seven-year-old Negev Bedouin girl who was physically injured in the attack. Five more headlines were dedicated to describing the Israeli counter-response.

For comparison, 12 dramatic and charged headlines were dedicated to the unfortunate incident involving the World Central Kitchen convoy, some of which harshly criticized Israel as if the act was intentional. But hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones in an unprecedented attack by a state that declared its intention to destroy Israel elicited much less emotion or graphic descriptions and received more or less the same extent of coverage, according to the editors.

News was more biased than opinions

Surprisingly, the bias in the opinion pages was less severe than in the news reporting. Out of 240 opinion pieces chosen as part of the most important headlines during the war, 72 criticized Israel alone (30% of the articles), and 23 criticized only Hamas (9.6%). But out of 1,158 articles that were supposed to be balanced reports, 49.1% were critical of Israel alone, while critical views of Hamas were reduced to 5.3%.

Criticism of Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis combined appeared in only 10.6% of the reports. Qatar, which contributes billions to elite universities, was mentioned critically in only one headline out of 204 headlines that dealt with campus protests. Astonishingly, there wasn’t a single opinion piece during the war that criticized Hezbollah.

A personal note

It’s heartbreaking. It’s sad as an Israeli, and it’s sad as a journalist. When The New York Times conducts journalism in this manner, it sets the tone for the entire press. It legitimizes the propaganda industry masquerading as journalism, also known as “opinion journalism.” It’s not good for Israel, but it’s also not good for democracy.

The bottom line is that Israel received wild and disproportionate criticism, while Hamas and Iran received very limited criticism. The imbalance in these reports is distorted and dangerous not only to Israel but also to American values. It’s hard not to see that the subtext aligns with the disproportion in elite universities, the media, and now even in The Hague.

Methodology

The articles were collected daily from the Times newsletter called Today’s Headlines, which summarizes the most important headlines of the past day (about 50 per day). A total of 1,398 articles were collected from October 7, 2023, to May 7, 2024. Each article was coded by two parameters: criticism and empathy. Was empathy expressed towards an individual or group, and was criticism directed at an individual or entity? Articles without expressed criticism or empathy were coded as 0.

The Times response: “In moments like these, our independent reporting holds significant meaning. The New York Times has invested more than any other American newspaper to help readers understand the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the past decade. We have some of the most experienced journalists, photographers, and commentators in the world on the ground to ensure that the reporting on the terrorist attack on Israel on October 7 and the ongoing war between Israel and Gaza is rich in nuance, context, and professionalism. Regarding the December 28 investigation, we are confident in our reporting accuracy and continue to cover the issue of sexual violence during the conflict.”

Contributors: Material collection by Ido Shapira and Kelly Gley, article analysis by Efrat Tzari.