A review of the X feed of Sara Yasin, managing editor of The Los Angeles Times, reveals that “Her sympathies lie with Hamas,” according to an analysis from the media watchdog Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis.
Yasin’s social media “clearly indicates favoritism towards Hamas terrorists over the victims of horrific Hamas terrorism, and her personal bias seems to be influencing the content produced by the paper,” Alex Safian, research director at CAMERA, told JNS.
Safian urged readers to seek other news sources “for dependable information on Hamas’s war on Israel,” he told JNS. The paper’s decision to “put someone like Yasin in a position of authority raises serious questions about their judgment, and the reliability of anything they publish.”
Per the CAMERA analysis, Yasin has shared several anti-Israel posts on X. In one, she retweeted an article from Jewish Currents and included a quote stating that “Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza is quite explicit, open and unashamed.”
The managing editor also shared a post questioning the authenticity of documents that the Israel Defense Forces found on the bodies of Hamas terrorists and reposted a charge from the U.N. special rapporteur accusing Israel of “mass ethnic cleansing under the fog of war.”
Tamar Sternthal, director of CAMERA’s Israel office, wrote that the Los Angeles Times lacks “either a grasp of basic knowledge or the will to convey an accurate account of the horrific events and the relevant background information.”
She cited a piece in the Times that stated: “For decades, Israel has controlled the small Palestinian enclave of Gaza on the Mediterranean, where many residents are impoverished and cannot leave.” Israel hasn’t controlled Gaza since pulling out in 2005, Sternthal wrote.
A correction to the Times article now notes: “An earlier version of this article implied that Israel has controlled the Gaza Strip. Israel has controlled its border with Gaza, but not the territory itself.”
Hillary Manning, vice president of communications at the Times, told The Wrap that the paper stands behind Yasin. “Any suggestion that Sara Yasin sympathizes with Hamas is inaccurate, irresponsible and reckless.”
Ben Smith, a co-founder of Semafor and former New York Times media columnist, also defended Yasin. (Smith was editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed, where Yasin used to work.)
“Ugh this kind of personal attack on journalists, based on some combination of staring obsessively at social media, paying no attention to their actual work and looking at people’s last names, is a terrible feature of late Twitter,” Smith wrote.
CAMERA responded that Smith had, “without any evidence, charged that we targeted Yasin because she is Palestinian-American.”
The watchdog group added that Smith “has made it abundantly clear that he is not acting in good faith.”