Israel in The New York Times Over the Decades: A Changed Narrative and Its Impact on Jewish Readers

Abstract

During the winter of 1974, Seymour Topping, the assistant managing editor of The New York Times, and his wife, Audrey, visited Jordan as part of a tour of the Middle East.

On their stops in Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria, Topping often had to confront criticisms that The Times’s coverage was too favorable to Israel. It was a familiar enough situation for him; to be the editor of The Times in charge of international coverage meant you were a magnet for complaints. They were usually about the paper, but sometimes about U.S. policy which foreigners often believed was refracted through The Times’s coverage.