CHICAGO: Sixty-four American journalism professionals signed a letter sent to New York Times bosses expressing concern about a story published by the newspaper that accused Palestinians of sexual violence against Israeli civilians during the Oct. 7 attacks.
It concerns a story headlined “Screams Without Words: Sexual Violence on Oct. 7” that ran on the front page of the newspaper on Dec. 28 last year.
In the letter, addressed to Arthur G. Sulzberger, chairperson of The New York Times Co., and copied to executive editors Joseph Kahn and Philip Pan, the journalism professionals, who included Christians, Muslims and Jews, demanded an “external review” of the story.
It is one of several news reports by various media organizations that have been used by the Israeli government to counter criticisms of the brutal nature of its near-seven-month military response to the Hamas attacks, during which more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed and most of the homes, businesses, schools, mosques, churches and hospitals in Gaza have been destroyed, displacing more than a million people, many of whom now face famine.
The letter, a copy of which was obtained by Arab News, states that “The Times’ editorial leadership … remains silent on important and troubling questions raised about its reporting and editorial processes.”
It continues: “We believe this inaction is not only harming The Times itself, it also actively endangers journalists, including American reporters working in conflict zones, as well as Palestinian journalists (of which, the Committee to Protect Journalists reports, around 100 have been killed in this conflict so far).”
Shahan Mufti, a journalism professor at the University of Richmond, a former war correspondent and one of the organizers of the letter, told Arab News that The New York Times failed to do enough to investigate and confirm the evidence supporting the allegations in its story.
“The problem is the New York Times is no longer responding to criticism and is no longer admitting when it is making mistakes,” he said. The newspaper is one of most influential publications in the US, he noted, and its stories are republished by smaller newspapers across the country.
This week, the Israeli government released a documentary, produced by pro-Israel activist Sheryl Sandberg, called “Screams Before Silence,” which it said “reveals the horrendous sexual violence inflicted by Hamas on Oct. 7.” It includes interviews with “survivors from the Nova Festival and Israeli communities, sharing their harrowing stories” and “never-before-heard eyewitness accounts from released hostages, survivors and first responders.”
In promotional materials distributed by Israeli consulates in the US, the producers of the documentary said: “During the attacks at the Nova Music Festival and other Israeli towns, women and girls suffered rape, assault and mutilation. Released hostages have revealed that Israeli captives in Gaza have also been sexually assaulted.”
Critics have accused mainstream media organizations of repeating unverified allegations made by the Israeli government and pro-Israel activists about sexual violence on Oct. 7, with some alleging it is a deliberate attempt to fuel anti-Palestinian sentiment in the US and help justify Israel’s military response.
Some suggest such stories have empowered police and security officials in several parts of the US to crack down on pro-Palestinian demonstrations, denouncing the protesters as “antisemitic” even though some of them are Jewish.
New York Mayor Eric Adams, for example, asserted, without offering evidence, that recent protests by students on college campuses against the war in Gaza had been “orchestrated” by “outside agitators.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the protests against his country’s military campaign in Gaza are antisemitic in nature.
Jeff Cohen, a retired associate professor of journalism at Roy H. Park School of Communications at Ithaca College, told Arab News The New York Times story was “flawed” but has had “a major impact in generating support for Israeli vengeance” in Gaza.
He continued: “Israeli vengeance has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of civilians. That’s why so many professors of journalism and media are calling for an independent investigation of what went wrong.
“That (New York Times) story, along with other dubious or exaggerated news reports — such as the fable about Hamas ‘beheading babies’ that President Biden promoted — have inflamed war fever.”
Cohen said the US media “too often … have promoted fables aimed at inflaming war fever,” citing as an example reports in 1990 that Iraqi soldiers had removed babies from incubators after their invasion of Kuwait. The assertions helped frame anti-Iraqi public opinion but years later they were proved to be “a hoax,” he added.
“On Oct. 7, Hamas committed horrible atrocities against civilians and it is still holding civilian hostages,” Cohen said. “Journalists must tell the truth about that, without minimizing or exaggerating, as they must tell the truth about the far more horrible Israeli crimes against Palestinian civilians.
“The problem is that the mainstream US news media have a long-standing pro-Israel bias. That bias has been proven in study after study. Further proof came from a recently leaked New York Times internal memo of words that its reporters were instructed to avoid — words like ‘Palestine’ (‘except in very rare cases’), ‘occupied territories’ (say ‘Gaza, the West Bank, etc.’) and ‘refugee camps’ (‘refer to them as neighborhoods, or areas’).”
Mufti, the University of Richmond journalism professor, said belligerents “on both sides” are trying to spin and spread their messages. But he accused Israeli authorities in particular of manipulating and censoring media coverage, including through the targeted killing of independent journalists, among them Palestinians and Arabs, and said this was having the greatest impact among the American public.
“Broadly speaking, a lot of the Western news media, and most of the world news media, do not have access to the reality in Gaza,” he said. “They don’t know. It is all guesswork.
“They are all reporting from Tel Aviv, they are reporting from Hebron, they are reporting from the West Bank. Nobody actually knows what the war looks like. It is all secondhand information.
“Most of the information is coming through the Israeli authorities, government and military. So, of course, the information that is coming out about this war is all filtered through the lens of Israel, and the military and the government.”
Mufti said the story published by The New York Times “probably changed the course, or at least influenced the course, of the war.”
He said it appeared at a time when US President Joe Biden was pushing to end the Israeli military campaign in Gaza “and it entirely changed the conversation. It was a very consequential story. And it so happens it was rushed out and it had holes in it … and it changed the course of the war.”
Mohammed Bazzi, an associate professor with the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, told Arab News the letter demanding an “external review” of the story is “a simple ask.”
He added: “This story, and others as well, did play a role” in allowing the Israeli military to take action beyond acceptable military practices “and dehumanize Palestinians.” Such dehumanization was on display before Oct. 7, Bazzi said.
“In the Western media there seemed to be far less sympathetic coverage of Palestinians in Israel’s war in Gaza as a consequence of these stories,” he continued.
“We have seen much less profiles of Palestinians … we are beyond 34,000 Palestinians killed but we don’t have a true number or the true scale of the destruction in Gaza — there could be thousands more dead under the rubble and thousands more who will die through famine and malnutrition. This will not stop, as a consequence of what Israel has done.”
Bazzi said the Western media has contributed to the dehumanization of Palestinians more than any other section of the international media, while at the same time humanizing the Israeli victims.
“The New York Times has a great influence on the US media as a whole and sets a standard” for stories and narratives that other media follow, which is “more pro-Israel and less sympathetic to Palestinians,” he added.
Bazzi, among others, said The New York Times has addressed “only a handful of many questions” about its story and needs to do more to present a more accurate account of what happened on Oct. 7.
The letter to New York Times bosses states: “Some of the most troubling questions hovering over the (Dec. 28) story relate to the freelancers who reported a great deal of it, especially Anat Schwartz, who appears to have had no prior daily news-reporting experience before her bylines in The Times.”
Schwartz is described as an Israeli “filmmaker and former air force intelligence official.”
Adam Sella, another apparently inexperienced freelancer who shared the byline on the story, is reportedly the nephew of Schwartz’s partner. The only New York Times staff reporter with a byline on the story was Jeffrey Gettleman.
Media scrutiny of the story revealed that “Schwartz and Sella did the vast majority of the ground reporting, while Gettleman focused on the framing and writing,” according to the letter.
The New York Times did not immediately respond to requests by Arab News for comment.
US media experts demand review of New York Times story on sexual violence by Hamas on Oct. 7
https://arab.news/4m6fc
US media experts demand review of New York Times story on sexual violence by Hamas on Oct. 7
- 64 American journalism professionals sign letter accusing the newspaper of failing to do enough to investigate and confirm the evidence supporting the allegations in its story
- It concerns a story headlined ‘Screams Without Words: Sexual Violence on Oct. 7’ that ran on the front page of the newspaper on Dec. 28
Iraq arrests commentator over online post on Iran-Israel war
- Iraqi forces arrested Abbas Al-Ardawi for sharing content online that included incitement intended to insult and defame the security institution
BAGHDAD: Iraqi authorities said they arrested a political commentator on Wednesday over a post alleging that a military radar system struck by a drone had been used to help Israel in its war against Iran.
After a court issued a warrant, the defense ministry said that Iraqi forces arrested Abbas Al-Ardawi for sharing content online that included “incitement intended to insult and defame the security institution.”
In a post on X, which was later deleted but has circulated on social media as a screenshot, Ardawi told his more than 90,000 followers that “a French radar in the Taji base served the Israeli aggression” and was eliminated.
Early Tuesday, hours before a ceasefire ended the 12-day Iran-Israel war, unidentified drones struck radar systems at two military bases in Taji, north of Baghdad, and in southern Iraq, officials have said.
The Taji base hosted US troops several years ago and was a frequent target of rocket attacks.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the latest drone attacks, which also struck radar systems at the Imam Ali air base in Dhi Qar province.
A source close to Iran-backed groups in Iraq told AFP that the armed factions have nothing to do with the attacks.
Ardawi is seen as a supporter of Iran-aligned armed groups who had launched attack US forces in the region in the past, and of the pro-Tehran Coordination Framework, a powerful political coalition that holds a parliamentary majority.
The Iraqi defense ministry said that Ardawi’s arrest was made on the instructions of the prime minister, who also serves as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, “not to show leniency toward anyone who endangers the security and stability of the country.”
It added that while “the freedom of expression is a guaranteed right... it is restricted based on national security and the country’s top interests.”
Iran-backed groups have criticized US deployment in Iraq as part of an anti-jihadist coalition, saying the American forces allowed Israel to use Iraq’s airspace.
The US-led coalition also includes French troops, who have been training Iraqi forces. There is no known French deployment at the Taji base.
The Iran-Israel war had forced Baghdad to close its airspace, before reopening on Tuesday shortly after US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire.
Grok shows ‘flaws’ in fact-checking Israel-Iran war: study
- “Grok demonstrated that it struggles with verifying already-confirmed facts, analyzing fake visuals, and avoiding unsubstantiated claims”
WASHINGTON: Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok produced inaccurate and contradictory responses when users sought to fact-check the Israel-Iran conflict, a study said Tuesday, raising fresh doubts about its reliability as a debunking tool.
With tech platforms reducing their reliance on human fact-checkers, users are increasingly utilizing AI-powered chatbots — including xAI’s Grok — in search of reliable information, but their responses are often themselves prone to misinformation.
“The investigation into Grok’s performance during the first days of the Israel-Iran conflict exposes significant flaws and limitations in the AI chatbot’s ability to provide accurate, reliable, and consistent information during times of crisis,” said the study from the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) of the Atlantic Council, an American think tank.
“Grok demonstrated that it struggles with verifying already-confirmed facts, analyzing fake visuals, and avoiding unsubstantiated claims.”
The DFRLab analyzed around 130,000 posts in various languages on the platform X, where the AI assistant is built in, to find that Grok was “struggling to authenticate AI-generated media.”
Following Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Israel, Grok offered vastly different responses to similar prompts about an AI-generated video of a destroyed airport that amassed millions of views on X, the study found.
It oscillated — sometimes within the same minute — between denying the airport’s destruction and confirming it had been damaged by strikes, the study said.
In some responses, Grok cited the a missile launched by Yemeni rebels as the source of the damage. In others, it wrongly identified the AI-generated airport as one in Beirut, Gaza, or Tehran.
When users shared another AI-generated video depicting buildings collapsing after an alleged Iranian strike on Tel Aviv, Grok responded that it appeared to be real, the study said.
The Israel-Iran conflict, which led to US air strikes against Tehran’s nuclear program over the weekend, has churned out an avalanche of online misinformation including AI-generated videos and war visuals recycled from other conflicts.
AI chatbots also amplified falsehoods.
As the Israel-Iran war intensified, false claims spread across social media that China had dispatched military cargo planes to Tehran to offer its support.
When users asked the AI-operated X accounts of AI companies Perplexity and Grok about its validity, both wrongly responded that the claims were true, according to disinformation watchdog NewsGuard.
Researchers say Grok has previously made errors verifying information related to crises such as the recent India-Pakistan conflict and anti-immigration protests in Los Angeles.
Last month, Grok was under renewed scrutiny for inserting “white genocide” in South Africa, a far-right conspiracy theory, into unrelated queries.
Musk’s startup xAI blamed an “unauthorized modification” for the unsolicited response.
Musk, a South African-born billionaire, has previously peddled the unfounded claim that South Africa’s leaders were “openly pushing for genocide” of white people.
Musk himself blasted Grok after it cited Media Matters — a liberal media watchdog he has targeted in multiple lawsuits — as a source in some of its responses about misinformation.
“Shame on you, Grok,” Musk wrote on X. “Your sourcing is terrible.”
Tech-fueled misinformation distorts Iran-Israel fighting
- It is no surprise that as generative-AI tools continue to improve in photo-realism, they are being misused to spread misinformation
WASHINGTON: AI deepfakes, video game footage passed off as real combat, and chatbot-generated falsehoods — such tech-enabled misinformation is distorting the Israel-Iran conflict, fueling a war of narratives across social media.
The information warfare unfolding alongside ground combat — sparked by Israel’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and military leadership — underscores a digital crisis in the age of rapidly advancing AI tools that have blurred the lines between truth and fabrication.
The surge in wartime misinformation has exposed an urgent need for stronger detection tools, experts say, as major tech platforms have largely weakened safeguards by scaling back content moderation and reducing reliance on human fact-checkers.
After Iran struck Israel with barrages of missiles last week, AI-generated videos falsely claimed to show damage inflicted on Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion Airport.
The videos were widely shared across Facebook, Instagram and X.
Using a reverse image search, AFP’s fact-checkers found that the clips were originally posted by a TikTok account that produces AI-generated content.
There has been a “surge in generative AI misinformation, specifically related to the Iran-Israel conflict,” Ken Jon Miyachi, founder of the Austin-based firm BitMindAI, told AFP.
“These tools are being leveraged to manipulate public perception, often amplifying divisive or misleading narratives with unprecedented scale and sophistication.”
GetReal Security, a US company focused on detecting manipulated media including AI deepfakes, also identified a wave of fabricated videos related to the Israel-Iran conflict.
The company linked the visually compelling videos — depicting apocalyptic scenes of war-damaged Israeli aircraft and buildings as well as Iranian missiles mounted on a trailer — to Google’s Veo 3 AI generator, known for hyper-realistic visuals.
The Veo watermark is visible at the bottom of an online video posted by the news outlet Tehran Times, which claims to show “the moment an Iranian missile” struck Tel Aviv.
“It is no surprise that as generative-AI tools continue to improve in photo-realism, they are being misused to spread misinformation and sow confusion,” said Hany Farid, the co-founder of GetReal Security and a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Farid offered one tip to spot such deepfakes: the Veo 3 videos were normally eight seconds in length or a combination of clips of a similar duration.
“This eight-second limit obviously doesn’t prove a video is fake, but should be a good reason to give you pause and fact-check before you re-share,” he said.
The falsehoods are not confined to social media.
Disinformation watchdog NewsGuard has identified 51 websites that have advanced more than a dozen false claims — ranging from AI-generated photos purporting to show mass destruction in Tel Aviv to fabricated reports of Iran capturing Israeli pilots.
Sources spreading these false narratives include Iranian military-linked Telegram channels and state media sources affiliated with the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), sanctioned by the US Treasury Department, NewsGuard said.
“We’re seeing a flood of false claims and ordinary Iranians appear to be the core targeted audience,” McKenzie Sadeghi, a researcher with NewsGuard, told AFP.
Sadeghi described Iranian citizens as “trapped in a sealed information environment,” where state media outlets dominate in a chaotic attempt to “control the narrative.”
Iran itself claimed to be a victim of tech manipulation, with local media reporting that Israel briefly hacked a state television broadcast, airing footage of women’s protests and urging people to take to the streets.
Adding to the information chaos were online clips lifted from war-themed video games.
AFP’s fact-checkers identified one such clip posted on X, which falsely claimed to show an Israeli jet being shot down by Iran. The footage bore striking similarities to the military simulation game Arma 3.
Israel’s military has rejected Iranian media reports claiming its fighter jets were downed over Iran as “fake news.”
Chatbots such as xAI’s Grok, which online users are increasingly turning to for instant fact-checking, falsely identified some of the manipulated visuals as real, researchers said.
“This highlights a broader crisis in today’s online information landscape: the erosion of trust in digital content,” BitMindAI’s Miyachi said.
“There is an urgent need for better detection tools, media literacy, and platform accountability to safeguard the integrity of public discourse.”
BBC shelves Gaza documentary over impartiality concerns, sparking online outrage
- The film, titled “Gaza: Doctors Under Attack” had been under editorial consideration by the broadcaster for several months.
LONDON: The BBC has decided not to air a highly anticipated documentary about medics in Gaza, citing concerns over maintaining its standards of impartiality amid the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict.
The film, titled “Gaza: Doctors Under Attack” (also known as “Gaza: Medics Under Fire”), was produced by independent company Basement Films and had been under editorial consideration by the broadcaster for several months.
In a statement issued on June 20, the BBC said it had concluded that broadcasting the documentary “risked creating a perception of partiality that would not meet the BBC’s editorial standards.” The rights have since been returned to the filmmakers, allowing them to seek distribution elsewhere.
The decision comes in the wake of growing scrutiny over how the BBC is covering the Israel-Gaza war. Earlier this year, the broadcaster faced backlash after airing “Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone,” a short film narrated by a 13-year-old boy later revealed to be the son of a Hamas official. The segment triggered nearly 500 complaints, prompting an internal review and raising questions about vetting, translation accuracy, and the use of sources in conflict zones.
BBC insiders report that portions of “Gaza: Doctors Under Attack” had been considered for integration into existing news programming. However, concerns reportedly emerged during internal reviews that even limited broadcast could undermine the BBC’s reputation for neutrality, particularly given the politically charged context of the ongoing war.
Filmmaker Ben de Pear and journalist Ramita Navai, who worked on the documentary, have expressed disappointment at the decision. They argue that the film provided a necessary and unfiltered look at the conditions medical workers face in Gaza. “This is a documentary about doctors — about the reality of trying to save lives under bombardment,” said Navai. “To shelve this is to silence those voices.”
Critics of the BBC’s decision have been vocal on social media and online forums, accusing the broadcaster of yielding to political pressure and censoring Palestinian perspectives. One commenter wrote, “Sorry, supporters of the Israeli government would get very offended if we demonstrated the consequences … so we shelved it.” Others, however, defended the move, citing the importance of neutrality in public service broadcasting.
A BBC spokesperson said the decision was made independently of political influence and reflected long-standing editorial guidelines. “We are committed to reporting the Israel-Gaza conflict with accuracy and fairness. In this case, we concluded the content, in its current form, could compromise audience trust.”
With the rights now returned, Basement Films is expected to seek other avenues for release. Whether the documentary will reach the public via another broadcaster or platform remains to be seen.
Iran’s Internet blackout leaves public in dark, creates uneven picture of war with Israel
- Civilians are left unaware of when and where Israel will strike next, despite Israeli forces issuing warnings
- Activists see it as a form of psychological warfare
DUBAI: As the war between Israel and Iran hits the one-week mark, Iranians have spent nearly half of the conflict in a near-communication blackout, unable to connect not only with the outside world but also with their neighbors and loved ones across the country.
Civilians are left unaware of when and where Israel will strike next, despite Israeli forces issuing warnings through their Persian-language online channels. When the missiles land, disconnected phone and web services mean not knowing for hours or days if their family or friends are among the victims. That’s left many scrambling on various social media apps to see what’s happening — again, only a glimpse of life able to reach the Internet in a nation of over 80 million people.
Activists see it as a form of psychological warfare for a nation all-too familiar with state information controls and targeted Internet shutdowns during protests and unrest.
“The Iranian regime controls the information sphere really, really tightly,” Marwa Fatafta, the Berlin-based policy and advocacy director for digital rights group Access Now, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We know why the Iranian regime shuts down. It wants to control information. So their goal is quite clear.”
War with Israel tightens information space
But this time, it’s happening during a deadly conflict that erupted on June 13 with Israeli airstrikes targeting nuclear and military sites, top generals and nuclear scientists. At least 657 people, including 263 civilians, have been killed in Iran and more than 2,000 wounded, according to a Washington-based group called Human Rights Activists.
Iran has retaliated by firing 450 missiles and 1,000 drones at Israel, according to Israeli military estimates. Most have been shot down by Israel’s multitiered air defenses, but at least 24 people in Israel have been killed and hundreds others wounded. Guidance from Israeli authorities, as well as round-the-clock news broadcasts, flows freely and consistently to Israeli citizens, creating in the last seven days an uneven picture of the death and destruction brought by the war.
The Iranian government contended Friday that it was Israel who was “waging a war on truth and human conscience.” In a post on X, a social media platform blocked for many of its citizens, Iran’s Foreign Ministry asserted Israel banned foreign media from covering missile strikes.
The statement added that Iran would organize “global press tours to expose Israel’s war crimes” in the country. Iran is one of the world’s top jailer of journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, and in the best of times, reporters face strict restrictions.
Internet-access advocacy group NetBlocks.org reported on Friday that Iran had been disconnected from the global Internet for 36 hours, with its live metrics showing that national connectivity remained at only a few percentage points of normal levels. The group said a handful of users have been able to maintain connectivity through virtual private networks.
Few avenues exist to get information
Those lucky few have become lifelines for Iranians left in the dark. In recent days, those who have gained access to mobile Internet for a limited time describe using that fleeting opportunity to make calls on behalf of others, checking in on elderly parents and grandparents, and locating those who have fled Tehran.
The only access to information Iranians do have is limited to websites in the Islamic Republic. Meanwhile, Iran’s state-run television and radio stations offer irregular updates on what’s happening inside the country, instead focusing their time on the damage wrought by their strikes on Israel.
The lack of information going in or out of Iran is stunning, considering that the advancement of technology in recent decades has only brought far-flung conflicts in Ukraine, the Gaza Strip and elsewhere directly to a person’s phone anywhere in the world.
That direct line has been seen by experts as a powerful tool to shift public opinion about any ongoing conflict and potentially force the international community to take a side. It has also turned into real action from world leaders under public and online pressure to act or use their power to bring an end to the fighting.
But Mehdi Yahyanejad, a key figure in promoting Internet freedom in Iran, said that the Islamic Republic is seeking to “purport an image” of strength, one that depicts only the narrative that Israel is being destroyed by sophisticated Iranian weapons that include ballistic missiles with multiple warheads.
“I think most likely they’re just afraid of the Internet getting used to cause mass unrest in the next phase of whatever is happening,” Yahayanejad said. “I mean, some of it could be, of course, planned by the Israelis through their agents on the ground, and some of this could be just a spontaneous unrest by the population once they figure out that the Iranian government is badly weakened.
