Internal Review Uncovers Reuters Pro-Israel Bias

UK – In a report released on Thursday, multiple journalists revealed the Reuters pro-Israel bias in reporting among its editors and management.

The latest incident that led to a backlash over Reuters’ biased reporting was when Israel killed Palestinian journalist Anas al-Sharif earlier this month. Although al-Sharif previously worked for the newswire, even winning a 2024 Pulitzer Prize for his work there, Reuters used the headline “Israel kills Al Jazeera journalist it says was Hamas leader” for their coverage of al-Sharif’s death.

The public backlash was not limited to the billion-viewer audience of the global newswire nor to this incident, as the concern it sparked among some staff at Reuters produced an internal review of bias within their reporting.

An internal study by Reuters journalists analyzed 499 reports tagged as “Israel-Palestine” published between Oct. 7 and Nov. 14, 2023 and found a “consistent pattern of assigning more resources to covering stories affecting Israelis as opposed to Palestinians,” according to investigative journalism group Declassified UK.

“A comprehensive internal investigation, conducting both quantitative and qualitative analyses of our reporting” took place, according to a Reuters source, which told Declassified UK: “A few weeks after the Oct. 7 attack, several journalists at Reuters recognized that our coverage of the Israel-Gaza war lacked objectivity.”

“The findings formed the basis of an open letter, which was shared internally to identify and connect journalists within the newsroom who are committed to strengthening Reuters’ journalism on Gaza,” the source said.

Its authors also complained that “one clear-cut example of how our wording implies bias is in our choice to prohibit use of ‘Palestine’… While Palestine may not be recognized as a state in some Western countries, we do not need to pretend that it is not a real place.”

The group then questioned why Reuters had not reported more on claims by experts that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, contrasting it with how the newswire approached such allegations about Russia’s conduct in Ukraine.

Double Standards in Reuters News Reporting

Reflecting on the criticism, Howard S. Goller, Reuters global news desk’s editor for quality & style, sent an email with the subject “Reuters style update on conflict in the Middle East” to revise editorial policy.

The update reportedly allowed Reuters journalists to use the word “genocide” with attribution, but still limits the term Palestine for “references to historic Palestine from antiquity … to 1948.”

Even with the looser restrictions on the term “genocide,” the analysis by UK Declassified found that Reuters went on to use the word in just 14 of 300 reports on its “Israel and Hamas at War” page between June 21 and Aug. 7.

Even when genocide was mentioned, it was nearly always with Israel’s denial – a “double standard” practice not afforded to other belligerents such as the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan or Russia.

This practice drew a backlash from social media figures such as Assal Rad, a scholar of Middle East history known as the “headline fixer” who said: “The pattern you note is essentially genocide denial.”

“Reuters frames Israel’s atrocities in Gaza as part of an ongoing ‘war’ or ‘military campaign,’ rather than calling it a genocide, despite the consensus among human rights experts and international institutions that have concluded Israel is committing genocide,” she said.

Mouthpiece to Israeli Perspective to Condition Public Opinion

The analysis by Declassified UK shows that Goller’s email quoted sections from the style guide titled “Gaza War (2023–present)” and “Broader Context” which provide details primarily from Israel’s perspective and do not mention crucial elements such as the role of the US and Israel in sabotaging ceasefire negotiations.

They were found to completely omit Israel’s illegal settler colonialism and apartheid and significantly underreported the extent of destruction in Palestine.

In addition, the updated style guide sections failed to cite British medical journal The Lancet’s findings, which “estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza” and neglect the fact that Gaza has become a deadly conflict zone for journalists.

In light of all of these, a Reuters spokesperson told UK Declassified that they believed their coverage “has been fair and impartial, in keeping with the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

“As in many newsrooms, our coverage of the war has come under close scrutiny, including by our own journalists, and we have faced feedback from multiple places.”

Reuters management did not respond to questions about whether any recommendations from the internal study had been accepted.