Pinker’s analysis revealed that The New York Times mentioned “Israel” more than three times as often as “Hamas” and rarely acknowledged the deaths of Hamas fighters in Israeli military operations.

Pinker concluded “The net result of these imbalances and others is to create a depiction of events that is imbalanced toward”
1. creating sympathy for the Palestinian side,
2. places most of the agency in the hands of Israel,
3. is often at odds with actual events,
4. and fails to give readers an understanding of how Israelis are experiencing the war

The study also follows broader criticism of international media bias.

A separate report led by British lawyer Trevor Asserson found that the BBC disproportionately associated Israel with genocide, doing so 14 times more than Hamas.

Meanwhile, a January 2024 analysis by The Intercept claimed that major US newspapers exhibited bias against Palestinians in the early weeks of the war, arguing that mentions of Israeli deaths outnumbered those of Palestinians and that terms such as “Palestinian” appeared less frequently than “Israeli” or “Israel.”

The Intercept report also contended that US media largely reflected Israeli government narratives, particularly in the first six weeks of the conflict.