Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Notice a Troubling Change

In a survey of about seventy people working in American newsrooms, conducted by the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association (AMEJA), journalists of Middle Eastern and North African descent described facing intensified levels of scrutiny since October 2023, with the start of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. AMEJA published the results of its research as the ceasefire went into effect, marking a time for reflection on press coverage of the war. “We put together a survey because, as journalists, we always try to uncover the truth,” Aymann Ismail, the president of AMEJA and a staff writer at Slate, said. “Rather than talk about it, we wanted to see what the actual metrics were, and we wanted to see if this is something that was being experienced across the board.”

The results were striking: 68 percent of respondents reported noticing changes in how editors assigned or framed their coverage of the Middle East; 85 percent said that their reporting on the Middle East and North African (MENA) region had been held to a “higher standard of neutrality.” Three quarters of those polled said their newsrooms applied standards of objectivity unevenly, based on background or identity; 75 percent said they frequently or occasionally “self-censored their language and reporting due to fear of backlash,” and 44 percent reported an increase in online harassment.