Last month, reports broke that a journalist at BBC resigned over the outlet’s coverage of Israel’s war against Hamas. According to Fox News, journalist Noah Abrahams said he quit over the network's decision not to label Hamas as "terrorists" during coverage of the group’s terror attacks in Israel.
In an interview, Abrahams said that British Jews felt “terrified” and that he made “a really monumental career decision, and life decision.”
On Friday, Jazmine Hughes, a staff writer for The New York Times, left the outlet after signing an open letter accusing Israel of genocide against the Palestinian people. In addition, Hughes came out against her outlet’s coverage of Israel’s war against Hamas.
According to The Washington Post, Hughes joined the paper in 2015 and won many awards. She signed a statement by a group called Writers Against the War on Gaza (via WaPo):
It accused Israel of targeting journalists and killing thousands of Palestinians since Oct. 7, when the Israeli government declared war on Hamas after the militant group launched a bloody attack from its base in the Gaza Strip that killed at least 1,400 people in Israel and took dozens of hostages. The death toll in Gaza since the war began is approaching 10,000.
“Israel is an apartheid state, designed to privilege Jewish citizens at the expense of Palestinians, heedless of the many Jewish people, both in Israel and across the diaspora, who oppose their own conscription in an ethno-nationalist project,” read the statement, which specifically criticized a New York Times editorial that offered qualified support of Israeli reprisal attacks while imploring the country to protect Palestinian civilians.
NY Times writer Jazmine Hughes resigns after accusing Israel of ‘genocide’ https://t.co/HmE6Qd6PXs pic.twitter.com/YvxzCJ6b2w
— New York Post (@nypost) November 4, 2023
“While I respect that she has strong convictions, this was a clear violation of The Times’s policy on public protest,” magazine editor Jake Silverstein reportedly wrote in an email to staff on Friday. “This policy, which I fully support, is an important part of our commitment to independence.”
Reportedly, Hughes broke company policy by publicly coming out against the paper’s coverage of transgender people.
“She and I discussed that her desire to stake out this kind of public position and join in public protests isn’t compatible with being a journalist at The Times, and we both came to the conclusion that she should resign,” Silverstein reportedly added.