FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 8, 2025
Media Contact: Melissa Garriga | [email protected]
CODEPINK Joins Autonomous Activists Protest of The New York Times Demand Accountability For Manufacturing Consent For The Gaza Genocide
NEW YORK CITY – On Tuesday, April 8, autonomous activists led a public protest to call out The New York Times for their ongoing complicity in the genocide in Gaza with the following goals.
- To damage The New York Times’ brand as a credible and reliable liberal news source.
- To call out specific New York Times journalists’ inaccurate and dishonest reporting and appeal to staff to challenge internal guidelines that seek to obscure the facts and misinform the public.
- To raise awareness among the public about the anti-Palestinian bias in the New York Times’ reporting and offer concrete ways to take action to demand accountability.
The protest was held at The New York Times Building, 620 8th Avenue, New York, NY from 5:00-7:30 pm. Participants held banners that read, “200+ Journalists Killed by Israel. NYT, Where’s Your Headline?” and portraits memorializing martyred Palestinian journalists bearing their name, age, and the words “Murdered by Israel.” Other signs highlighted the false headlines published by The New York Times since October 2023 and called out the most egregious writers for their lack of integrity and failure to report the truth. Organizers alternated between leading chants, telling the public and New York Times staff who they are and why they are here, and reading short speeches. Participants handed out copies of The New York War Crimes and educational flyers to the public and employees leaving the building
During the protest, CODEPINK presented a letter to the New York Times, signed by over 7,000 individuals over the past few months. The letter demands accountability for the newspaper's repeated dissemination of proven falsehoods that have fueled the violence of the ongoing genocide, as well as its continued refusal to acknowledge Israel's actions as genocide. Click here to read full letter.
A recent report entitled “News Graveyards: How Dangers to War Reporters Endanger the World” released by Brown University’s Costs of War Project at the Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs, noted that 232 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Gaza between October 7, 2023, and March 26, 2025, an average of 13 journalists killed each month. There is evidence in at least 35 instances that the journalists were directly targeted by Israel because of their reporting. And yet the New York Times stays silent, refusing to condemn Israel or hold them accountable for war crimes in its reporting.
The New York Times is known for prioritizing statements from Israeli government officials and military spokespeople, taking their word as the truth and refusing to name Israel as a perpetrator even when there is evidence of war crimes. At the same time, the Times uses dehumanizing language to describe Palestinians, reducing them to faceless and nameless statistics. A leaked internal memo exposed the Times’ censorship of words like “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” or even referring to “Palestine” in their reporting even when Israeli leaders have themselves stated that their goal in Gaza in ethnic cleansing and international experts agree that genocide accurately describes what has unfolded in Gaza.
At the time of writing, Al Jazeera reported that Israel bombed a tent that housed journalists near Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, killing at least two and critically wounding seven others. Will the New York Times publish an accurate headline that names Israel as the perpetrator and holds them accountable, or will they continue to omit the most important details and be a mouthpiece for the Israeli government?
The organizers demand that The New York Times:
- Condemn Israel’s deliberate targeting and killing of Palestinian journalists in Gaza.
- Uphold standards of journalistic integrity in its reporting on the Gaza genocide, including use of correct terminology and holding Israel accountable for committing war crimes.
And urge the public to take the following actions:
- Unsubscribe from The New York Times.
- Write to The New York Times Editor demanding an internal investigation into the paper’s anti-Palestinian bias. (Via email [email protected] or by sending letters to 229 West 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036)
- Stay informed by following Palestinian journalists on the ground, including @anasjama144, @alhelou.y, and @wizard_bisan1 on Instagram.
The action was organized by a group of autonomous individuals from across the New York metro area who do not have any organizational affiliation. This group of anti-genocide activists are committed to holding complicit institutions to account through a variety of tactics. They take inspiration from and commit to honoring the final words of 23-year-old Hossam Shabat, a Palestinian journalist who was deliberately targeted and killed by Israelis at the end of March. Shabat said: “I ask you now: do not stop speaking about Gaza. Do not let the world look away. Keep fighting, keep telling our stories – until Palestine is free.”
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