A New York Times story about the Palestinian terror attack and subsequent murder of Lucy Dee, and her daughters Maia, 20, and Rina, 15, as they were driving in their car during Passover didn’t mention their names and obscured the tragedy under an anodyne headline.
“It is a compelling, crushing story. And yet The New York Times didn’t highlight the latest killings in its vague headline, which mentioned only ‘tensions,’ ” wrote Gilead Ani, a senior researcher at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting (CAMERA), in a recent analysis. “It didn’t report on the attack in any proportion to its importance, with just four paragraphs of its 35-paragraph story focused on the attack.”
As the CAMERA analysis noted, the Times reported on Palestinian food three times in recent months, including on the day of the funeral of the Dee sisters.
“It does raise questions about the paper’s priorities when we hear more from sisters Tala and Galia Abu Hussein about how their mother arranged the rice, chicken and vegetables on a plate than we hear from any member of the Dee family about the terror that tore them apart,” Ani wrote.
He added that Times headlines tend to use passive voice with Palestinian attacks (“West Bank Erupts in Violence as Officials Pledge to Work for Calm,” “At Least 2 Dead as Driver Rams Bus Stop in East Jerusalem” and “At Least 7 Killed in Attack in Jewish Area of East Jerusalem”). When talking about Israel, however, the headlines are active: “Israeli Raid on West Bank City Kills Nine Palestinians, Officials Say” and “Israeli Raid Kills at Least 5 Palestinians in West Bank.”
