New York Times Pumps Out Al-Jazeera-Style Anti-Israel Videos for TikTok

The New York Times is using the Chinese-dominated TikTok video app to amplify and pump out Al-Jazeera-style short videos from Gaza demonizing Israel.

Some of the most-viewed recently posted videos on the Times TikTok account, which has 1.8 million followers, feature dramatic images—with credit omitted—and language describing Israel as an aggressor.

“Israel bombarded a large tent encampment for displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza, causing a deadly fire,” is a headline on one Times TikTok video that has been viewed more than 110,000 times.

“Families desperate for food gathered at distribution sites in Gaza as Israel’s halt on humanitarian aid surpassed 60 days,” is the headline on another video, viewed more than 100,000 times. There’s no transparency in the TikTok video of what journalist captured the video and conducted the interviews, or under what conditions or terms—it is simply credited to “The New York Times.”

The videos are also available, in horizontal format, on the Times website. There the videos carry bylines of Times staffers and, in some cases, very brief attribution of the source of the images. For example, an April 7 video headlined “Israeli Strike By a Major Hospital in Gaza Kills and Injures Journalists” is credited to Nader Ibrahim and Jon Hazell. Ibrahim is a “senior video journalist” based in London and came to the Times from the BBC; Hazell is a video editor also based in London. The video carries a brief attribution to “Anadolu Agency, via Reuters.” What the Times doesn’t tell its readers or viewers is that the “Anadolu Agency” is a state-controlled organ of the government of Turkey, which hosts and is ideologically aligned with Hamas.

Text that goes along with the video on the Times website says, “The strike killed one journalist and injured nine others, according to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate. At least one more person was killed, according to Gaza’s government office. Among those injured was Hasan Aslih, whom the Israeli military accused, without providing evidence, of being a Hamas militant.”

The bias here is clear. “Gaza’s government office” is the Hamas terrorists, but the Times doesn’t say that. Israel gets the “without providing evidence” treatment, but actually the IDF did offer up details, with a statement on social media, “Asilh, who operates under the guise of a journalist and owns a press company, is a terrorist operative in Hamas’ Khan Yunis Brigade. On October 7, he infiltrated Israeli territory and participated in Hamas’ murderous massacre. Asilh documented and uploaded footage of looting, arson and murder to social media.”

The Times is churning out video after video along this model—produced not in the Times Jerusalem bureau, but by workers in London or New York relying on scantily credited video from foreign wire services, advancing a pro-Hamas narrative and giving short shrift to Israel’s point of view. An April 17 video credited to Ibrahim is headlined, “Israeli Strike Kills at Least a Dozen in ‘Humanitarian Zone,’ Gazan Officials Say.” Text says, “Gaza’s Civil Defense, the local emergency rescue service, reported that an Israeli strike overnight into Thursday in the Mawasi encampment area killed at least a dozen people, including children. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.” Gaza’s “civil defense” is the Hamas terrorist organization.

A May 4, 2025 video by McKinnon de Kuyper includes images attributed only to “AFPTV” without disclosing to Times readers that the AFP board includes three representatives appointed by the French government. The Times describes de Kuyper as based in New York as a “weekend video journalist, operating livestreams and producing clips and breaking news packages for our website and social platforms.”

De Kuyper also is credited with a May 14, 2025, video headlined “Dozens Killed in Israeli Strikes in Northern Gaza, Officials Say.”

A May 7, 2025, video headlined “Airstrikes Kill Dozens in Gaza City” is attributed only to “By The New York Times.” It says, “The single deadliest bombing took place near a popular cafe in Gaza City where at least 33 people were killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.” The IDF announced May 8 that during a May 7 strike in the area of Gaza City it had eliminated “Muhammad Rasmi Marzouq Barakeh, a terrorist in Hamas’ military intelligence, who infiltrated Israel during the brutal October 7 massacre, and participated in the abduction of Yaffa Adar.” The Times video doesn’t report that.

Another video, also produced from London, amplifies a protest within Israel against the Israeli government’s policies.

I’ve had my quarrels and complaints over the years with print New York Times coverage produced by the newspaper’s journalists in Washington, New York, and Israel. But these propaganda-style videos are so strident and apparently calculated to generate an emotional response that they make previous New York Times news articles in print look, by comparison, like something produced by Israel’s government press office. What’s the point of having the New York Times produce this stuff when anyone can go to the TikTok account of Qatari-sponsored Al Jazeera and get basically the same material, also amplified to US-based viewers by TikTok’s proprietary algorithm?

Perhaps the New York Times management thinks they can profit in the short term by surfing the wave of Jew-hate, but it will be at the cost of eroding for longtime customers whatever credibility it built up over the years. Maybe they think that the legacy print customers aren’t paying attention to what the newspaper is doing on the social media platforms. Not so—we see it, and we are disgusted—not by what the Times is accusing Israel of doing, but by the Times’s abandonment, in the process, of traditional journalistic standards of quality, accuracy, and transparency.

Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.

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