Over 60 journalism professors are calling for an investigation into the controversial NYT article about mass rape on October 7th

A group of more than 60 journalism professors wrote The New York Times They called on the newspaper to commission an independent review of its report that Hamas members committed widespread sexual violence on October 7. Numerous media outlets, as well as some employees of the newspaper itself, have asked questions about the December 28 article with the headline “Screams without words,” reports in part a freelance Israeli journalist who had liked several posts on social media in which he himself advocated violence against Palestinians. The Just even published later reports undermining some of the key elements of the article, which was used by Israeli leaders and Western allies to justify the brutal military campaign in Gaza, which by that point had already killed tens of thousands of Palestinians. “It was very disturbing for journalism professors to see such a shabby article published without retraction or investigation,” said Rutgers media studies professor Deepa Kumar, one of the signatories and author of Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire. She also says that as an academic, she is concerned about mainstream media portrayals of student camps as places of hate and violence. “Those of us who have been in these camps know that the atmosphere there is peaceful until the police show up and start causing chaos. … These are fantastic learning spaces.”