The New York Times distorts the Palestinian struggle: A case study of anti-Palestinian bias in US news coverage of the First and Second Palestinian Intifadas

Abstract

This article provides a methodologically novel, large-scale proof of historical bias against Palestine in a newspaper of international importance – The New York Times (NYT) – during the First and Second Palestinian Intifadas. Using state-of-the-art natural language processing toolkits as well as a regression model with over 90 percent accuracy based on a carefully validated word bank, the author analyzes over 33,000 NYT articles for (1) their use of active/passive voice, and (2) the objectivity, tone, and violent sentiment of the language used. She follows up her quantitative analysis with a qualitative validation step, analyzing biased articles in each period. In conjunction with historical context, the article shows that anti-Palestinian bias persisted disproportionately in the NYT during both periods and, in fact, worsened from the First Intifada to the Second. This work builds on a history of qualitative research on anti-Palestinian bias in the US media and attempts to provide a methodological contribution that encourages conversation between quantitative and qualitative metrics of bias.