This past weekend, I read an most extraordinary book, Adam H. Johnson’s How to Sell a Genocide. You will definitely want to read it, since much of it is about the New York Times. Johnson makes an astonishing case for prosecuting many of your reporters, editors, and managers for the crimes of inciting and maintaining Israel’s genocide in Gaza. As you know, the legal prosecution of genocide is not limited to investigations of the military or police. As we saw with the Holocaust and Rwanda, genocide prosecutors have also typically investigated the role that media groups play in generating violence. Johnson details the role you have played—and continue to play—in producing American consent for the ongoing US-Israeli assault on the Palestinian people. I hope that Johnson’s study will become part of a legal case at the Hague, where perhaps you and your colleagues will receive a fair trial.
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You should be aware that Johnson’s study makes two very clear accusations against your organization. On the one hand, you have produced many inciting claims which led directly to violence. In particular, Johnson highlights some of your most thoroughly discredited pieces, such as “Screams Without Words” and your reporting on Israel’s multiple atrocities at the Al-Shifa Hospital. Arguably, your libelous reports on UNRWA had an even more serious impact, since they led directly to months of famine and mass starvation among Gazans. Each of these reports provided flak for war crimes that resulted in hundreds and thousands of deaths. Worse, these and many other stories were sourced to Israeli agencies that have well-established records of lying and disinformation. Despite their well-documented mendacious history, you gave these stories a platform and soaked your readership with propaganda that has proven false time and time again. Multiple media critics have elucidated the many falsities in these reports for many months now—and somehow, you have yet to retract them. What gives? Are you being held hostage?
Johnson’s second big point has to do with your very consistent pattern of depicting Palestinian humanity as less than Jewish humanity. By this, he is refering to a deep-seated pattern of bias and double standards
cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/63812
Professor Elliott Colla was a lifelong New York Times reader but can no longer trust the paper due to its coverage of Gaza. In fact, he's found that there is a strong case for prosecuting many at the paper for their role in the genocide.
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