Journalists Occupy New York Times Building in Protest of Newspaper’s Gaza Coverage: ‘There is Blood on the Hands’ of the Editorial Board
Twitter/@BTnewsroom
More than a hundred journalists occupied the lobby of the New York Times on Thursday in protest over the editorial board’s opposition to a ceasefire in Gaza.
The protesters entered the New York Times building on Thursday afternoon and “remained for over an hour, reading off the names of thousands of Palestinians killed in Gaza, including at least 36 journalists whose deaths have been confirmed since the war began,” according to AP.
HAPPENING NOW: 100+ journalists, artists, and cultural workers calling themselves Writer’s Bloc take over @nytimes lobby in NYC to demand Editorial Board call for ceasefire in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/xIq2kNpfkE
— Writers Against the War on Gaza (@wawog_now) November 9, 2023
BREAKING: Media workers have taken over the lobby of the New York Times headquarters in NYC in protest of their biased coverage of Palestine.
They are reading from newspapers bearing the names of the thousands of Gazans murdered by Israel in the last month. pic.twitter.com/DGi9yw0BTt
— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) November 9, 2023
The protesters also distributed imitation copies of the New York Times titled “the New York Crimes,” which accused the newspaper of “complicity in laundering genocide,” and read out the names of members of the editorial board.
Hundreds of writers read aloud the names of the New York Times editorial board, screaming: “New York Times you have blood on your hands.” pic.twitter.com/wx9WijqFTh
— Mnar Adley (@MnarMuh) November 9, 2023
In a statement, the group criticized the newspaper for publishing “an editorial arguing against a ceasefire in Gaza, despite overwhelming support for a ceasefire from the international community, including Amnesty International, the UN, and a majority of Americans,” and argued that “by repeating the insidious claim that a ceasefire ‘would accomplish little at this point,’ the Board has enabled the Israeli government’s genocidal killing of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.”
The statement continued:
In the past month The New York Times has consistently minimized and outright erased the critical context of 75 years of Israeli apartheid and land theft, 55 years of military occupation, and Israel’s brutal and illegal 17-year military siege of Gaza. The Times has also unquestioningly repeated false and unsubstantiated claims made by the Israeli government and military without independently verifying these claims, throwing basic principles of journalism out the window. Israel has a history of spreading false and misleading statements in order to justify and cover up for its extreme violence and war crimes against Palestinians, including the killing of renowned Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. There is blood on the hands of The New York Times’ Editorial Board.
“We urge the Board to do the right thing and call for an immediate and complete ceasefire before any more lives are lost and to stop erasing context from their coverage that is vital to any understanding of what is taking place,” it concluded.
