Parody New York Times ‘supplement’ criticizing paper’s coverage of Israel/Palestine distributed on streets of NYC

Update: Jewish Voice for Peace and Jews Say No! have taken credit for the faux ‘NYT’ highlighting biased coverage on Israel/Palestine

Original Post:

This morning New York commuters are being treated to a surprise as they head to work. People have spread out across New York City handing out an expertly-produced “supplement” to today’s New York Times announcing a “new editorial policy” towards Israel/Palestine.

We got the following announcement this morning from the email address newyorktimes-ip@newyorktimes.com:

Dear Valued Reader,

The New York Times has decided to make several changes in our editorial policy with regard to coverage of events in Israel-Palestine. These changes are an attempt to address both realities on the ground and the concerns readers have expressed about fairness in our reporting. We are proud to bring you more trustworthy and fact-based coverage.

We want to hear your thoughts. Explore our new Israel-Palestine supplement and tell us what you think. Write to us at newyorktimes-ip@newyorktimes.com or join the conversation on Twitter.

10,000 copies of the paper is being distributed throughout New York City. Here is it being handed out right by the Times building itself:

And from the Twitter account @nyt_ip that has been set up to promote the supplement:

https://twitter.com/nyt_ip/status/694516620987875328

https://twitter.com/nyt_ip/status/694513664506908672

The centerpiece of the supplement is an editorial announcing a “new editorial policy” on Israel-Palestine. It reads:

Throughout its history, The New York Times has aimed to uphold the highest principles of fairness and accuracy in our news coverage. We take this very seriously. We now recognize this sense of fairness has been absent in our paper’s coverage of ongoing conditions in Israel and Palestine.

Having met for the past several months with leaders of Palestinian and Jewish peace organizations, our editorial staff recognizes that accusations of bias in our coverage have been well-founded. For example, it has come to our attention that, during the period of September-October 2015, eighteen headlines depicted Palestinians, while none depicted Israelis, as instigators of violence. Our news stories referred to Palestinian violence 36 times and Israeli violence only twice. We used the word “terrorist” to describe Palestinians 42 times, but only once to describe an Israeli.

In light of this reality, The Times editorial staff has decided to make several changes in our editorial policy with regard to coverage of events in Israel-Palestine. These changes are an attempt to address both realities on the ground and the concerns readers have expressed about fairness in our coverage. Some changes will regard substance.

We will also be attentive to distortions of style and attribution. When reporting views of government and security officials, we will be careful to indicate when something is alleged or attributed rather than to convey it as known fact.

In addition, we are aware that a disproportionate number of our news stories in the past year and a half have focused on Israeli government statements and positions or the views of Israeli Jewish citizens; only a small fraction have featured Palestinian speakers, whether officials and advocates or residents who experience the effects of Israeli policies in everyday life. When reporting on victims of violence, we have profiled and named Jewish Israelis more frequently than we have Palestinian victims. Beginning now, we will attempt to redress this and other imbalances. To this end, one of our immediate goals is to add correspondents from the region who are Palestinian, and to include reporters and authors of opinion pieces who are reflective of the communities they are covering or writing about.

The supplement looks like the real deal, here’s the front page:

Check out the supplement’s website www.newyorktimes-ip.com to read the all articles.