Pak Sahafat – Two American researchers and experts in sociology and human rights published an article describing the double standards of the Western and US media in dealing with the crisis in Ukraine and Yemen, of which the New York Times newspaper is a clear example.
According to the report of Pak Sahafat International News Agency, one of the important facts that the Ukraine crisis revealed to the world was the disclosure of the true identity of human rights claimants in the West and America, and while they justify the crimes of their allies around the world, including the region, against nations, and from this tried to present the crisis in Ukraine as the biggest crisis of the century.
While the prominent Western media cover the news of the war in Ukraine and present exaggerated reports, they pay no attention to the crimes of the occupying regime against the Palestinians or the inhumane incidents during the devastating war in Yemen, which marked the biggest catastrophic crisis of the century. Western media’s coverage of the developments in Ukraine revealed important points about them. The three characteristics of racism, hypocrisy and lies are now widely recognized as the main characteristics of Western media. What is clear is that this racism is not limited to the western media and is actually rooted in the political, economic, cultural and social structures and institutions of the western countries and it is also evident in their selective treatment of the refugees who are leaving Ukraine.
In this regard, Esther Brito Ruiz and Gio Bachman, two researchers and professors of social sciences and human rights in the United States, in an article titled “Main Headlines and Front Lines: How American Media’s Bias in Establishing Civilian Losses in Yemen and Ukraine Wars” Will it be revealed?”, they wrote, the quality and quantity of the coverage of the sufferings of the people of Ukraine and Yemen in the American media is not fair.
We put together New York Times headlines covering nearly seven and a half years of the ongoing war in Yemen and the first nine months of the conflict in Ukraine, these American experts added. Here we focused on headlines related to civilian casualties, food security and arms supplies, not breaking news or unsubstantiated opinion. For this reason, we chose the New York Times newspaper for our research, which is a global media and journalists from all over the world work in it. This media has also received the “Politaire” award more than 130 times and is known as a reliable and strong source of international news.
According to the aforementioned American researchers, our analysis focused exclusively on headlines. Although full stories may provide a broader context for reporting, headlines are especially important for three reasons: Headlines frame the story, influencing how they are read and remembered. Headlines also reflect a publication’s ideological stance on a topic, and this is important to many audiences. In fact, the headlines are the only parts of the story that are read completely. Our research shows that there are significant biases in the scope and style of the New York Times’ media coverage of human suffering in the Yemen and Ukraine wars, consistent with US foreign policy goals.
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Ukraine in the spotlight
According to this article, without a doubt, the American audience considers the war in Ukraine more important in terms of news, as one of the journalists of CBS News talks about the victimization of white people in describing the war in Ukraine. From March 25, 2015, which is the beginning of the Yemen war, to November 30, 2022, the New York Times newspaper published 546 stories about Yemen, while the number of articles published about the war in Ukraine was much more than this number in just 3 months. Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the front page of the New York Times has become a common thing. This is while the news about the war in Yemen is very rare and uncommon in the New York Times, and after 3 years of the heavy siege of the war coalition against Yemen, we see that only a few news are published about the food security of this country.
In the continuation of this report, when we evaluated the headlines related to the war in Yemen and Ukraine, we divided them into two categories: The sections that were focused on certain and specific events and the sections that were related to the general coverage of developments. For example, look at these 2 headlines: “Saudi Arabia attack appears to have killed at least 9 Yemeni families”, “Brutal Russian attacks spark accusations of genocide in Ukraine”. Almost 64% of the New York Times headlines about Yemen focused on events and incidents, while 73% of the Ukraine crisis content was in the context of the article and dealing with details. This is very important, because by focusing on episodic stories, it can lead the audience in the direction that the medium has set.
Accordingly, occasional headlines about the war in Yemen without addressing the details of the brutality of the war coalition against this country may create the impression that the problems and sufferings of the Yemeni people are a random incident. This is while the articles related to the crisis in Ukraine deal with the extensive analysis of the consequences of the conflict and emphasize that Russia should be held accountable.
The difference in blaming the parties in the war in Ukraine and Yemen
It is emphasized in this article, blaming the attacking side and blaming it are completely different in the New York Times media coverage. In our research, we found 50 headlines related to the war in Yemen, in only 36% of which Saudi Arabia and its coalition are the culprits. For example, see the New York Times headline about a painful tragedy published on April 24, 2018: “20 Killed in Yemen Wedding Targeting.” This is a clear example that shows how the main issue was ignored and the goal was to blame the Houthis (Ansarullah) for this attack, not Saudi Arabia!
Different stories from 2 humanitarian crises
In the article of “Ester Brito-Ruiz” and “Gio Bachman”, it is emphasized that both wars in Ukraine and Yemen led to food insecurity, but still, the news reports of hunger in the two countries are not very similar. Check out these headlines: “How Russia is using the hunger of Ukrainians as a weapon of war”, “Famine is raging in Yemen as the war continues and foreign aid decreases”. This is while the blockade of the Saudi coalition against Yemen is the main cause of famine in this country, and according to the World Organization against Torture, this Saudi blockade against Yemen is equivalent to torture.
A cover-up about America’s role in the tragedy of the war in Yemen
According to this report, contrary to the New York Times’ approach to the war in Yemen, we found that the headlines related to the war in Ukraine are often in the moral domain: “Russian forces bomb Ukrainian civilians”, “Russia invades Ukraine”. All these headlines try to show Russia as evil and violent. In contrast, Ukrainians are portrayed as heroes who are fighting for the survival of their land. But it is interesting to note that the New York Times does not use condemning sentences against the Saudi attacks in Yemen, despite the reports of human rights organizations, conflict monitors, and international and local experts who hold the coalition responsible for the vast majority of civilians.
As the report concludes, the point is that when it comes to America’s relationship with those who suffer the most civilian casualties, the United States is effectively on the opposite side of the wars. Washington officials have made many public statements about “brutal crimes” in Ukraine, but have avoided investigating and condemning the crimes in Yemen.