Unfortunately, the two most widely circulating newspapers in the US cannot say the same. In the lead-up to the (ICJ Genocide Case) hearing, the New York Times only published three articles focused on the case, while another Times piece included a brief mention of the genocide charges. During the two-day hearing, each paper ran two articles about it in their print editions. Each published an overview of the case. For their second piece, the New York Times looked at both Israeli and Palestinian reactions, while the (Wall Street) Journal focused only on Israeli reactions; the one Palestinian it quoted was identified as an Israeli citizen. The Wall Street Journal ran no pieces focused on the charges prior to the hearing. The Journal‘s only mention of the genocide case in the pre-trial period came in a broader article about the war, which included six paragraphs about South Africa’s application. The paper did not reference the case again until the trial began.

Palestinian voices, however, were marginalized in both papers. Fourteen of the 65 Times sources were Palestinian (22%); 22 (34%) were Israeli. Five of its 10 articles on the genocide case that appeared in print quoted no Palestinian sources. By contrast, only one—a piece about South African domestic politics (1/27/24)—quoted no Israeli sources.

Of the Journal’s 23 sources, five (22%) were Palestinian, and 9 (39%) were Israeli. Two of its articles were evenly balanced between Palestinian and Israeli sources, while one (1/12/24) quoted five Israelis and only one Palestinian—the citizen of Israel mentioned above.

It was pretty clear to me US news sources favored Israel, but it’s good to have statistics to show exactly how.