New York Times Cuts Ties With Gaza-Based Reporter Who Said ‘Jews Are Sons of the Dogs’
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by Ira Stoll
A taxi passes by in front of The New York Times head office, Feb. 7, 2013. Photo: Reuters / Carlo Allegri / File.
The New York Times said on Friday that it had terminated its relationship with a Gaza City “fixer” who has a social media history that includes a post that said, “I don’t accept a Jew, Israeli or Zionist, or anyone else who speaks Hebrew. I’m with killing them wherever they are: children, elderly people, and soldiers … The Jews are sons of the dogs … I am in favor of killing them and burning them like Hitler did. I will be so happy.”
The post was unearthed and published by HonestReporting, a pro-Israel advocacy and media watchdog group.
The Times “fixer” whose social media posts were at issue, Fady Hanona — credited by name on six articles published in the paper this month — did not immediately reply to an email from The Algemeiner asking whether the statement had been accurately attributed to him, whether it still represented his view, and whether it was consistent with working as a journalist for the New York Times.
On Friday afternoon a spokeswoman for the Times told The Algemeiner, “The New York Times had worked with this freelance reporter only in recent weeks. We are no longer doing so.”
Fixers are often hired by news organizations for help with logistics related to newsgathering and with journalistic tasks.
An August 9, 2022 Associated Press dispatch disclosed, “Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in 2007 from rival Palestinian forces, requires all visiting reporters to have a local sponsor — usually a Palestinian journalist or translator hired by the news outlet.” The AP said that during the recent clashes, Hamas imposed “sweeping new restrictions,” which the AP said “appeared aimed at imposing the Islamic militant group’s narrative on media coverage of the conflict.”
Under the guidelines, the AP said, “sponsors were told they must accompany the journalists during their reporting and will be held responsible for what they produce. The sponsors were warned that they must ‘demonstrate national spirit, defend the Palestinian narrative and reject the foreigner’s bias to the Israeli narrative.’”
The AP said the sponsors would have to tell Hamas about any “illogical questions” and report to back to Hamas about what the journalists did in Gaza. “The guidelines appeared to suggest that writing about forbidden topics like the rocket misfires — or about the media guidelines themselves — could have led to the revocation of local sponsorship,” the AP said.
During the period the guidelines applied, New York Times articles from Gaza included the credit line “Fady Hanona contributed reporting from Gaza City.” The Times online archive shows no record of Hanona’s byline in the Times before August 5 of this year, though Hanona’s LinkedIn profile says he has been working as a freelance “fixer” since January 2009.
At least one article in which Hanona was credited was egregiously slanted propaganda. That article, headlined, “Gaza’s hospitals could shut down because of power cuts, the health ministry warns,” failed to mention that Gaza’s health ministry is controlled by the Hamas terrorist group dedicated to Israel’s destruction, or that Hamas has used the hospital as a base of operations. As an Israeli government statement put it, “Hamas uses hospitals and ambulances for terrorism.” No mention of that in the New York Times article from Gaza in which Hanona was credited. And, unlike the Associated Press, the New York Times has published nothing I’ve seen so far informing its readers about the guidelines that Hamas imposed.
Editor’s note: this article has been updated with a response from the New York Times
Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.
