On June 25, The New York Times published a story titled “Bowman falls in House primary, overtaken by flood of pro-Israel money.” The following day, it changed the headline to “Bowman falls to Latimer in a loss for progressive Democrats.”
The paper’s “unconscious bias towards the Jewish community continues to manifest itself in new and harmful ways,” Eric Goldstein, CEO of the UJA-Federation of New York, wrote last week.
Goldstein called the original headline about Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) “staggering” and said that it “placed blame for Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s primary defeat at the feet of Jews.”
“It is true that pro-Israel groups contributed significant financial resources to the race, which is not surprising given Mr. Bowman’s extremist positions and past statements about Israel, including that reports of Hamas’s sexual assaults against women on Oct. 7 were Israeli ‘propaganda,’” Goldstein wrote. “But there is no excuse for a prominent headline stating Mr. Bowman was ‘Overtaken by flood of pro-Israel money.’”
“Implying that Jewish and pro-Israel donors unfairly tipped the scales has serious consequences. Not only does it feed a dreadful antisemitic stereotype, it does a disservice to voters in the 16th Congressional District who made their voices heard, loud and clear,” he added. “Equally troubling was the Times’s recent A1 profile of pro-Israel advocate Miriam Adelson, which played upon those same stereotypes.”
Goldstein wrote that the paper of record “has an ethical and moral obligation to recognize the impact of its reporting.”
“In recent years, the Times’s leadership has been upfront about its commitment to diversity and recognizing unconscious bias—no doubt an important effort,” he added. “We simply ask that this standard is applied to the Jewish community, as well.”
