\u00a0<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n\u201cWe do come under intense scrutiny and often are accused of having a bias in favor of one side or another,\u201d says New York Times<\/strong> executive editor Joe Kahn ( 12\/2\/25<\/a>)\u2014which in his mind seems to prove they\u2019re doing a fine job.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Last week, a sentence stopped me in my tracks. It was embedded in a question posed by Patrick Healy<\/a>, New York Times<\/b> assistant managing editor, to his boss, executive editor Joe Kahn<\/a>.<\/p>\n The duo\u2019s back-and-forth (New York Times<\/b>, 12\/2\/25<\/a>)\u2014in which Healy synthesized readers\u2019 questions, and also asked Kahn a few of his own\u2014offered readers a look at how the Times<\/b> covers the issues of the day.<\/p>\n Halfway through a meandering question on Gaza, Healy said: \u201cSome critics say we\u2019re mouthpieces for Hamas.\u201d Wait, what?<\/p>\n Only a handful of zealots fit this bill, and maybe the most conspicuous example\u2014the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA)\u2014has a familial tie to Kahn.<\/p>\n Was Healy gaslighting readers? I wondered. Or was he about to disclose Kahn\u2019s tie to readers? (Spoiler: he didn\u2019t; nor did Kahn.)<\/p>\n CAMERA billboard<\/a> likening the New York Times<\/strong> to Hamas.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n CAMERA<\/a> is a group dedicated to attacking news outlets critical of Israel. Its research methods have been criticized as slipshod and agenda-driven (Extra!<\/b>, 3\u20134\/01<\/a>; Electronic Intifada<\/b>, 8\/24\/09<\/a>). \u201cCAMERA\u2019s story is an un-nuanced, hard-line version of Mideast history in which Israel can do no wrong,\u201d the American Prospect<\/b> (5\/1\/08<\/a>) observed, writing about the group\u2019s efforts to surreptitiously edit Wikipedia articles on Israel\/Palestine.<\/p>\n The Forward<\/b> (11\/29\/19<\/a>) has included it among groups \u201cknown for intimidation and smear campaigns against scholars and students whose views they oppose.\u201d It has backed efforts to plant informants in college classrooms to monitor for \u201cbias\u201d (Electronic Intifada<\/b>, 4\/29\/10<\/a>).<\/p>\n And for over a decade<\/a>, it has plastered a billboard across the street from the Times<\/b>\u2019 office, which it uses to attack the Times<\/b>, even going so far as to compare the paper to Hamas: \u201cHamas attacks Israel: Not surprising. The New York Times<\/b> attacks Israel: Also<\/i> not surprising.\u201d<\/p>\n Far from recoiling at CAMERA\u2019s extremism, Kahn\u2019s late father, Leo Kahn, embraced the group, serving on its board for nearly two decades. As the billionaire co-founder of the office supplies company Staples, Leo Kahn was also presumably a donor to CAMERA, helping underwrite the group\u2019s attacks, including on his own son\u2019s employer.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, father and son \u201coften dissected newspaper coverage,\u201d the Times<\/b> (4\/19\/22<\/a>) noted in a profile of Joe Kahn, upon his being named executive editor in 2022.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is accurate to use \u2018terrorism\u2019 and \u2018terrorist\u2019 in describing the attacks of October 7,\u201d the New York Times<\/strong> decreed (Intercept<\/strong>, 4\/15\/24<\/a>), but the paper \u201cset a high bar for allowing others to use [\u2018genocide\u2019] as an accusation.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Leo Kahn died in 2011, well before his son was elevated to the Times<\/b>\u2019 top job, but it\u2019s hard to imagine he wouldn\u2019t be proud of Joe\u2019s handiwork.<\/p>\n Under Joe, the Times<\/b> has ignored the conclusions<\/a> of UN agencies, human rights groups and others by refusing to call Israel\u2019s two-year-plus destruction of Gaza a genocide.<\/p>\n Other terms such as \u201cethnic cleansing\u201d and \u201cPalestine\u201d are also discouraged in Kahn\u2019s newsroom, according to an internal Times<\/b> memo leaked to the Intercept <\/b>(4\/15\/24<\/a>).<\/p>\n Meanwhile, even as Kahn was clamping down on the newsroom, he offered praise to then-President Joe Biden for backing Israel\u2019s genocide.<\/p>\n Biden has shown \u201ca degree of engagement and mastery over some of the details of foreign policy,\u201d Kahn said<\/a> in May 2024, citing as an example Biden\u2019s support for Israel\u2019s genocide, then in its seventh month.<\/p>\n Joe Kahn told Semafor<\/strong> (5\/5\/24<\/a>) that raising the issue of his father\u2019s involvement with CAMERA was \u201ca backhanded way of saying, \u2018His father was Jewish.\u2019\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n When Semafor<\/b> (5\/5\/24<\/a>) (gently) asked Joe Kahn whether his father\u2019s views on Israel may have influenced his own, he cried antisemitism:<\/p>\n [To] raise doubts implicitly about the integrity of somebody, based on their parent\u2014the implication there would be that there\u2019s some sort of genetic reason why I would be partial to Israel. So yeah, I think there is some implication of race.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cMy father did what he did,\u201d Kahn continued. \u201cBy the time that I was in journalism, he wasn\u2019t active at all.\u201d<\/p>\n But Kahn\u2019s journalism career began in 1987<\/a>, three years before his father joined<\/a> CAMERA\u2019s board.<\/p>\n By the time Kahn joined the Times<\/b> in 1998, his dad had already served on CAMERA\u2019s board for eight years. And Leo Kahn would remain there for another decade, even as his son climbed the Times<\/b>\u2019 ladder.<\/p>\n \u201cAs late as 2008, the year Joe Kahn was promoted to editor on the [Times<\/b>] foreign desk, Leo Kahn was listed<\/a> on CAMERA\u2019s board of directors,\u201d the Intercept<\/b> (1\/28\/24<\/a>) reported.<\/p>\n FAIR\u2019s Owen Schacht (10\/7\/24<\/a>): \u201cThe Times<\/b>\u2019 prized cover story<\/a> was built on shaky foundations<\/a>, with the paper dismissing assurances from hospitals and hotlines that they had gotten no reports of sexual violence, relying instead on politicized sources with a record of debunked atrocity claims.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Maybe most egregiously, under Kahn, the Times<\/b> front-paged dubious Israeli claims about the October 7 attack, specifically that Hamas used rape as a weapon of war (Intercept<\/b>, 1\/28\/24<\/a>; FAIR.org<\/b>, 10\/7\/24<\/a>).<\/p>\n The Times<\/b> story (12\/28\/23<\/a>) was published two and a half months after October 7, at a pivotal moment when Israel\u2019s war on Gaza might have been brought to an early end, with global opinion rapidly turning against Israel over its brutal response. But the Times<\/b>\u2019 front-page story helped keep the world at bay<\/a>, buying Israel time to continue its genocide.<\/p>\n Two years later, the Times<\/b> has updated, but not retracted its story\u2014which Kahn hailed<\/a>.<\/p>\n At some point, the Times<\/b> will have to offer a mea culpa for its complicity in Israel\u2019s genocide (as it did with the Iraq War\u20145\/26\/04<\/a>). Until then, readers will have to make do with being gaslit.<\/p>\n ACTION ALERT: You can send a message to the <\/i>New York Times <\/i><\/b>at letters@nytimes.com<\/a> or via <\/i>Bluesky<\/i><\/b>:\u00a0<\/i>@NYTimes.com<\/i><\/a>. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your message in the comments thread here.<\/i><\/p>\n\u2018Dissected newspaper coverage\u2019<\/b><\/h3>\n
![\"CAMERA](\"https:\/\/eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/CAMERA-NYT-Billboard-350x467.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\u2018Engagement and mastery\u2019<\/b><\/h3>\n
![\"Intercept:](\"https:\/\/eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/NYT-Genocide-Memo-350x318.png\")
<\/p>\n\u2018Some sort of genetic reason\u2019<\/b><\/h3>\n
![\"Semafor:](\"https:\/\/eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Semafor-Joe-Kahn-350x249.png\")
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Keeping the world at bay<\/b><\/h3>\n
![\"FAIR:](\"https:\/\/eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/FAIR-Screams-350x268.png\")
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