#territorial journalism

[silksongeveryday]

Journal Entry 90: Garpede

(Drawing Hornet everyday until Silksong comes out - Day 634)

[caliginouscreature]

Sorry for being so inactive lately... been busy irl, and have been meaning to post here more often, but also, like... I always feel a bit shy approaching the 'kin communities on here because it kind of feels like everyone is sort of... "internet poisoned"? For lack of a possibly-better word. A lot of folks here on tumblr in the 'kin and alterhuman communities are children, and a lot of more prominent community figures treated like "elders" are only about my age or younger, and it feels really strange, to be honest. There's a lot of discussion of feelings and terminology, but very little "lifestyle"? It's like there's a universal expectation for everyone to just figure everything out on their own; you get some definitions here and there yeah, but the amount of variance says much more loudly "just figure out what it all means on your own, pal". ex. Not only can no one actually explain what "otherhearted" actually means sans relation to otherkin, but it feels like I never see anyone talk about dealing with what one could call "kin feels" in the workplace, when unable to acquire your habitat, etc... Othercon is online-only, and while I'm pretty sure I'd be unable to attend an in-person event, part of me has a hard time feeling like everyone is really taking it all seriously and is really unafraid of being "cringe" when obviously it's so much easier to act like you're so confident online. I kinda feel like meeting some wolfkin stereotypes in a park for snacks and doing a group howl would do more for me than years of reading essays on tumblr ever has.

I dunno, I tried watching a recording of an Othercon panel I felt would be relevant and useful to me once, and was floored at just how... utterly useless it was. Despite its promising title, it was just shallow "you're valid" garbage and internet discourse... Makes me feel severely alienated, to be honest.

[sleepinglionhearts]

Kai's Hobonichi Adventures (July-August 2024)

[akaakeis]

guys i havent spoken korean in ages FINGERS CROSSED i dont sound stupid cause i am not fluent in the slightest... my grandma has taught me here and there and the rest comes from kdramas i fear

[gentleoverdrive]

[November/1 of 2] Let's go on a journey!

Let's talk about ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Department.

(How to hook your audience right the hell out of the gate: with an incredible banger of an OP) ---- ACCA 13 (I'm just going to call it that from now on) is a manga written by the unbeatable Natsume Ono, the same trailblazer behind the heart-wrenching Not Simple, the charming Ristorante Paradiso and many others, and personally one of my favorite anime of all time. ---- No, this is not hyperbole: I mean it 100%

(I'm aware my taste is a little bit on the "oldie" side of things, but again, just presenting evidence; you can make your own topster here) ---- Natsume Ono is a master of her craft and will often get you invested in narratives that you might have otherwise given a pass to (an all-too-common problem with anime and manga, unfortunately) and nowhere is this more evident than in ACCA 13, which concerns itself with the story of one Jean Otus.

(Smoking is a filthy habit, but damn if our pretty man du jour doesn't make it look cool as hell) ---- Jean is a 28-29 year old man who works as the second-in-command of the auditing branch for the ACCA organization. ACCA is the Dowa Kingdom's civilian organization in charge of its Thirteen Territories' governance, and our man here is often the one in charge of making sure that no one is cooking any books, fleecing its subjects, etc. Basically he watches the watchmen. ---- Jean is easily recognizable for his blond hair, piercing blue eyes, perpetually even-tempered disposition, being a smart cookie, and his chain-smoking. He's also extremely good at ruffling the feathers of many a person without meaning to. ---- Following him in the weird life he lives is his little sister Lotta...

(Yes, she is voiced by the always delightful Aoi Yuuki (JP) and Alexis Tipton (EN), what gave it away?) ---- Ray of sunshine, high-schooler, building manager and baked goods enthusiast. Jean being who he is worries her but she also knows that her brother is far more perceptive than he's given credit for. ---- To finish with the "main trio". we have Nino...

(Hotter men have likely existed in anime, sure; few, if any, have ever carried themselves with the sheer natural swagger this man does) ---- Nino has been a family friend of the Otuses for a while, and often makes it a point to check in on the siblings and see what's up, especially since the siblings are otherwise all the family they have. He fancies himself a freelance reporter/photographer... or does he? ---- And that's one of the charms/strongest points about ACCA 13: Some things/people are not always what they seem, and it's always good to keep your eyes and ears peeled to find your way around life, a philosophy often espoused by the other "secret" main character in this shindig, ACCA Director-General Mauve...

(Speaking of sheer charisma, swagger and handsomeness/beauty) ---- Voiced by the late Atsuko Tanaka in Japanese and Rachel Robinson in English, Mauve is a character who recognizes that not all that seems well is actually well, but she also strives in making sure things end up going well, which is how she gets the ball rolling in our story. ---- Natsume Ono, like many other idiosyncratic writers, likes to stick to certain themes and narrative devices, and ACCA 13 is no different in this regard. What is also true is that you'll always get something really special with her, since she often likes to address different topics and circumstances of people. And while many characters come and go in this series, they're all pretty memorable...

This is a series that, in my opinion, you cannot go wrong with either the original Japanese, the localization of the dub or even the original manga. 12 episodes/6 volumes that are a sheer joy from beginning to end and a cast that delivers in spades. Fantastic music, storyboards, cinematography and outstanding performances regardless of which language preference you may have. ---- Shingo Natsume & Tomohiro Suzuki (the director and head of the writers' room for this) were coming out of a hot streak that came from working on Space Dandy and the first season of One Punch Man and you can tell that they're firing on all cylinders with this incredible adaptation. ---- Again, there's a reason I really like this show and put it on my "all time faves" list, even if I admit that I have cooled off considerably wrt Re:Zero and Free!, so maybe I need to update that list, but I pretty much stand for everything else, including this absolute jewel. Anyway, enjoy yourselves and I'll read you on the next one!

[i-post-my-dreams]

@one-time-i-dreamt I'm stealing your gimmick and you can't stop me.

[ljubimaya]

"It's three a.m. and I woke up severly dehydrated" but it's me begging fem Baji to let me eat her out in the middle of the night

[beastsovrevelation]

You know how sometimes, you decide one thing, only for the characters to show you the middle finger, and do whatever they want?..

Happened to me. Again. Max (my Antichrist OC) and Crowley decided they want a story where they're together. Which is fine, I actually like the pairing. It seemed strange at first, since in most of my ideas, Crowley's Max's mother, stepmother or uncle, then I realized it's a stupid thing to let stop me, I mean... Max's mother in this would be Michael. Enough said.

Speaking of Ms. Sword of God, she's not happy. Not because Crowley's a demon, she's married to Satan himself (her own twin brother), she doesn't like that Crowley's a "traitor", and has no rank. Luckily, Max puts momma in her place, and Lucifer is supportive of the relationship. Michael will relent eventually, too.

All in all, I guess I'm adding another WIP to my ever-growing hoard. Though, for now, a coherent plot is yet to dawn on me. I mostly imagine random scenes. Some of them are rather funny, like when Nina tells Crowley that yes, his relationship with the woman he loves might indeed be decided by the impression he makes on a bird. Since, Max has a hunting falcon, and Crowley, being a snake, does not feel easy around raptors.

[megarywrites]

finally finished the chapter I've been stuck on I'm so pleased!!! current word count for the 2nd draft is just over 81k, which is crazy, but I know it'll get cut down in the next draft.

this chapter also hits the 25% mark of the entire story (both books), so I really feel like I made some progress tonight

[alexanderflowerbird]

I think my husband has the right idea about doing a little journaling about the journey when it comes to our Nano work, but mine will be less pretty to look at lol. So here goes; Day 1 and 2

DAY ONE

Day one went very well! I hit 1176 words writing a scene from Blood Sun Territory that's been tumbling around in my brain for a minute. I feel most excited about this project because I think it actively touches on a bunch of things I care about and that admit in the metaphorical way books do some of my greatest fears and hopes. I don't know that I feel the same way about New Faith-- there's things in there that are special from me of course, but it's much more dedicated to exploring my love of horror than exploring my own emotions through the lens of fiction. Blood Sun Territory already comes from a kind of vulnerable place for me with its plot structure and characters, but the more I work, the more I get to pour little, unique bits of myself into it and I officially know how I want it to end, so that's very gratifying. Here's an excerpt of the scene I wrote:

When the young monsters emerge they are… sticky, mostly. Mercedes knows that there’s some beauty to this, she can feel a sort of hugeness in her chest, but as she’s adjusting the newly born, loudly mewling monsters to bring them closer to the Ocatan’s head, she mostly notices the tactile experience of new life being made. Sticky, warm, loud, heavy. She hesitates with one of the little creatures in her arms, its long, horse like legs curled in against its body, blood and viscera caked in its fur, its face horse like and splotched with a white stripe up its nose, those eyes shut and mouth open making sounds that are, to her, like wailing of a rooster to announce morning. She hesitates, because with other animals bringing their young closer is important, it allows for them to be cleaned, fed, acknowledged by their exhausted parent. But with monsters… with monsters like the Ocatan beast, it could mean something else entirely. There’s nature in that too, isn’t there? There are all sorts of creatures that eat their young fresh out of the womb. Before they even know what the world might be like, they are consumed and forgotten… it’s only humans that have the… something, something different, to think eating their babies is wrong.

 She doesn’t want Ocatan to eat the babies, she wants to see what they look like clean and on their feet. Mercedes flinches, when the Ocatan beast growls at her, a low, shaky sound. It’s tired, but it’s looking at her with its baby in her arms, and it must know its natural imperative too. Whether it's to eat them or to clean and cuddle them, she isn’t involved and shouldn’t be holding the sticky, screaming thing Ocatan has just brought into the world. She takes cautious steps forward and Ocatan raises his head. 

“Please don’t eat the baby, Ocatan, sir.” She doesn’t know why it comes out like that– she feels the need to be reverent and the best way she knows how is to be polite despite the enormity of this moment. She’s never seen baby monsters, not anywhere. Ocatan has created the first next generation and he might crush them between his teeth and make them disappear. She kneels clumsily, and tips her body, setting the baby down and shying away quickly when Ocatan puts its huge snout against the baby. It opens its teeth. She closes her eyes tight to brace against the horror of hearing something newly made destroyed, but it doesn’t come. There is that crying still, and Ocatan’s snuffling along with the rhythm, wet lap of its tongue across the baby’s body, cleaning away the afterbirth. Mercedes opens her eyes in relief and remembers that there are two, getting up quickly to collect the other infant monster now that she knows it’s safe to deliver them to Ocatan’s care. 

“You’re a daddy,” She says, awestruck and captured by an unexpected rush of delight. “You’re a daddy, Ocatan.” She watches the monsters clean its young, wiping the gore on her hands across her jeans. She’ll have to get home and change, she’ll offer to do the laundry and her mamma will be pleased, if not suspicious of her initiative. Better an extra chore than getting found out to have this particular fascination, to be around beasts most well known for changing and eating their children first, most beloved of all to them when they were human. She should go home, but she stays a while and thinks of her daddy. She hardly remembers him, and her momma doesn’t talk about him except to say that he went to jail for being a stupid man, not a bad one, and that when she’s grown if she wants to waste time and money trying to hunt him down just to find out how stupid he is for herself, than that’s her choice. It’s not her choice yet though, so her elation is poisoned by an ache that makes all of this even more complex. The world is changing and she is changing too, but some things stay the same and somehow, despite having only a few pictures and blurry, bright memories of him, she misses her daddy as though she’s still little and wondering where he got off to, if he was hiding from her to be found or if he maybe didn’t love her and momma no more. 

DAY TWO

I have decided that along side the word count goal of 30k I want to have some plot based goals in mind for this fuck-nano season. I would like to get New Faith to a place where Mercutio and Vincente are neck deep in their next half possessed town, trying to help the people here and making new discoveries about how utterly fucked they are. I'd like to get Blood Sun Territory actually started, because I have a bunch of scenes I've written, nearly ten thousand words worth of scenes, but no start. I decided to handle that today, and completed a whopping 2,691 words while drinking a huge mug of coffee this morning. Four pages kicking off this adventure with Malachi about to leave prison and pissing himself about it. I am glad to find that his inner voice is different from Mercutio's, I have to be careful not to make them sound too much like the same man. Where Mercutio is quite cynical and sarcastic, Malachi is quietly hopeful and easily charmed by the reassurances others give him. While Mercutio's bound to Vincente at the hip because he's madly in love with him, Malachi is in the wind, uncertain what it means to love someone anymore and a little afraid to find out. I'm glad that at least to my own eyes they look very different even though they're both written by my hands. I'll probably write more today, later, to give New Faith some time because we're at a HUGE moment in the story where I've left off. Mercutio and Vincente are about to go into Vanessa's house, where their whole town has congregated to celebrate the coming of the demon hoard about to claim all of their bodies. Vanessa will be changed in some final, horrible way, and after that it's almost certain that the townsfolk are going to eat her body. Icky, harrowing and delightful. Here's an excerpt of what I've written so far though:

He wants to find Felina, his ex wife, and see his daughter Mercedes. He wants to meet them new, changed because how can ten years not change a person, and see if maybe Felina can find it in her heart to be his friend. He wants to see what ten years has made of their beautiful baby girl. He owes Felina a million apologies, for fucking everything up, for leaving her alone, for discovering in the safety of her love that he preferred men to women, for getting her pregnant when they were too young to know any better, for thinking getting money quick and through rough means made him more of a man. He’d cost himself plenty, but he feels certain what he’s done cost her more. 

Occasionally he imagines finding her and Mercedes in a pretty, old house on the coast, surrounded by green, exposed to the ocean in a way he and Felina had never experienced in their land locked upbringing. He imagines Felina playfully mean, gracefully kind, like she’d been with him up until the end when she’d had enough and had realized Malachi had been performing for her for the better part of a year while making eyes at men outside of their marriage. He imagines time has returned her to that sweet, sharp edged state, that ten years has made her beautiful in whole new ways, that he can love her properly this time, as her friend and supporter, and she will let him because she’s got a man in her life who is good to her and wants her beautiful body and has, sometimes in these fantasies, given her other beautiful children with her dark eyes and soft, wavy black hair. 

He imagines Mercedes is as spunky and quick as her mother, but that somehow despite not being around he’s been there with her all along in other ways. That she’s got an interest in cars she’s fostering and she loves animals. That she’s soft spoken, but has a wry sense of humor even for such a young person. That he can steer her away from smoking cigarettes like he did when he was fifteen and that, wildly because all of this is fantasy, she might like girls. He imagines that part of him reflected in the core of her being, dreams of giving her what he did not have, kindness and support and understanding. 

After all, he likes men, but he thinks women are beautiful. He at one point could trick himself into seeing the appeal enough to react physically, feminine beauty along with the pressures of his youth and upbringing manifesting in what appeared to be a cool guy, hard to get persona that had girls chasing him with their tongues out and eyes trained like hunting dogs. Maybe poor Mercedes is going through the same thing now, at fifteen, cultivating a mask that would keep her safe and ‘normal’ seeming, not knowing that the mask either comes off because she takes it off and admits who she is, or it’s shattered, and many other things break with it. He imagines telling her all these things. Having deep talks by the sea, their feet in the surf. He imagines she listens to him and feels seen and it doesn’t make up for being gone so long, but it makes up for some of it and that helps her to love him, to let her become someone other than a stranger. Perhaps not her dad, not completely, but not unwanted or unknown. 

This is of course, the perfect, dream-like vision of his meeting them again. Just about every other scenario ends in heartbreak because the mind is built for gauging threat and disaster. Felina comes out of a house on the prairie with a shotgun she uses to keep coyotes away and threatens to shoot him if he doesn’t disappear. There’s three feet of snow around him and he’s freezing off his fingers and toes and Felina takes one look at him on her doorstep and slams the door shut regardless of if he’ll freeze or not. Felina lets him into her charming Hacienda style home, is kind to him, but warns him that their daughter has fostered a bitterness for him that shows in her face and eyes. This one’s in the desert somewhere, and he imagines Mercedes is off riding a horse, a beloved creature that when he comes to try and talk to her, she’s looking at with such love that he knows she feels the exact opposite for him when her eyes slide his way and she recognizes him. Felina fits him in as a thirty minute meeting because she’s a big shot now in the city and she tells him while staring at a computer screen that she doesn’t care about him, that he’s a meaningless part of her past and that he can see Mercedes on the weekends but he has to take her to her ballet practice and soccer and gymnastics and chess, consigning his relationship with his long lost daughter to that of chauffeur and client rather than having any room to cultivate something meaningful. 

He’s had ten years and enough silence and distance to imagine just about every environment and household and emotional reaction and flavor of rejection that can happen within the real world. Felina hasn’t told him that she never wants to see him again from the grainy intercom connection of a space suit on the moon, at least.  

These visions of disaster are all entirely plausible, but Henry had had the right idea and Malachi reminds himself of that often. It could be bad. But it could be good. He could start bad and make it good, because he really wants to. It could start good and he could fuck it up some how, too. He is so afraid. Being good and being scared seems to be a paired nature he can’t untangle. 

[drizzledrawings]

john is arthurs annoying little brother >>> boys been annoying him since he was 12 yrs old and arthur had no issue having beef with a kid when he was 20

Hosea: Arthur Jesus Christ calm down!!

Arthur: *pushing johns head into the dirt* no I don’t think I will

[tpup]

she told me i remind her of her ex, and that makes her feel protective of me. she tilted her head like a curious dog when she said that.

i wasn't sure how to word a prying question about it. i said I feel guilty when people do things for me because i don't have something to give in return. she said that was a strange way for me to have responded.

[beta-adjacent]

Being territorial of where I sit is so mind boggling to me that I’ve now just associated it as a miscecanis thing. Like it's so intense that I start becoming territorial for other people.

Perfect example of this happened today:

My friend wanted to join me for a lecture I go to weekly, and I was like "Yes, Absolutely you can! but you Have to sit Specifically One seat to the Right of me" and he goes "literally why." and I go "because there's someone who Always sits One seat to my Left and someone who Commonly sits Two seats to my Right, and based on past experiences, you'll want to sit closest to me, and the Only free seat is the First One To My Right.”

So then he asked if I was stressed about him being there. Which to be fair I was, and I told him as much, but my phrasing was really bad. The way I summarized it to him was that generally imagining him in that setting was stressful, which in hindsight is a really bad way to synthesize my thoughts.

My real concerns were much more complex, the most notable being that he usually sits to my Direct Left in Any given opportunity, but Especially in a new environment. This appears to be something subconscious for him. There's no seating chart in this classroom, so he could very well just take the direct seat to my left, or I could move from my initial position.

However.

Number 1: that is My Seat and giving anyone the Opportunity to sit there gives me hives. I wouldn’t say anything, because I am civilized, but I’d certainly be wrought with anxiety.

Number 2: I am actually acquainted with these 1st Left & 2nd Right Seaters! In fact, the 1st Left Seater & I have known each other for a while now, and even Agreed to sit at These Specific Seats together in the First week of the semester. Meaning I now had two routines where I sit to the right of someone, suddenly colliding. I didn't want to choose between my not-lecture friend and my lecture-specific acquaintance; they both are of value to my life, and I didn't want to stir the pot by changing our sitting routines, or worse, by having them meet and interact with each other (I’m quite particular about the ways my social circles are sorted/navigated, and this would be like, a bad crossover episode).

Now, as mentioned prior, I only told my friend that his presence would catalyze a lot of stress -- mostly because, based on my last explanation, he was starting to look a tad stressed himself. The conversation had apparently ended then, and a few minutes later he slipped away, not joining me for lecture after all.

So this whole post is just me trying to gather my words/thoughts so I can properly apologize for calling his general prescence stressful (though I wonder if he's already dismissed the reaction in his mind...)

Point is that I don't think a lot of people know it, or will ever really get to know it, but I care a lot about people, just in weird, overly complex ways. And I think if they learned, they might appreciate it, and we could use it to our shared advantage, but they also might get overwhelmed by my idiosyncrasies, haha. And that all of this is just so much easier to understand if “little wolf in head angy when people sit wrong”

[gifti3]

i hate that people will try to convince you that you that you aren't being treated poorly or unfairly cause the idea of that makes them personally uncomfortable

[cryptidofthekeys]

Day 14 now- let's hope it's gotten better

EH?!? C-CODA NO?? WHY WOULD YOU WATCH THOSE?! I GET IT... IT'S A SPECIAL KINDA INTEREST BUT CODA NOOO- CODA!!!!

oh maannn, he's fucked isn't he guys... also Puzzles why the fuck are you sitting there so happy like that?! ...eh... guess your happy to have someone watch your stuff but still... Coda... I feel like something REALLY bad is gonna happen to him guys

[xtruss]

Leaked New (Jew) York Times, The Hub of Yellow Journalism, Gaza Memo Tells Journalists To Avoid Words “Genocide,” “Ethnic Cleansing,” And “Occupied Territoty”

Amid the Internal Battle over the New York Times’s Coverage of Terrorist, Fascist, Apartheid, Illegal Occupier and War Criminal Zionist 🐖 Isra-hell’s War, Top Editors Handed Down a Set of Directives.

— Jeremy Scahill, Ryan Grim | April 15 2024 | The Intercept

Pro-Palestine protesters flood the lobby of the New York Times offices and block the security entrances during a demonstration against the newspaper’s coverage of Israel's war on Gaza on March 14, 2024, in New York City. Photo: Michael Nigro/Sipa via AP Images

The New York Times OR The Jew York Times instructed journalists covering Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip to restrict the use of the terms “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” and to “avoid” using the phrase “occupied territory” when describing Palestinian land, according to a copy of an internal memo obtained by The Intercept.

The memo also instructs reporters not to use the word Palestine “except in very rare cases” and to steer clear of the term “refugee camps” to describe areas of Gaza historically settled by displaced Palestinians expelled from other parts of Palestine during previous Israeli–Arab wars. The areas are recognized by the United Nations as refugee camps and house hundreds of thousands of registered refugees.

The memo — written by Times standards editor Susan Wessling, international editor Philip Pan, and their deputies — “offers guidance about some terms and other issues we have grappled with since the start of the conflict in October.”

While the document is presented as an outline for maintaining objective journalistic principles in reporting on the Gaza war, several Times staffers told The Intercept that some of its contents show evidence of the paper’s deference to Israeli narratives.

“It’s the kind of thing that looks professional and logical if you have no knowledge of the historical context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”

“I think it’s the kind of thing that looks professional and logical if you have no knowledge of the historical context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” said a Times newsroom source, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, of the Gaza memo. “But if you do know, it will be clear how apologetic it is to Israel.”

First distributed to Times journalists in November, the guidance — which collected and expanded on past style directives about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict — has been regularly updated over the ensuing months. It presents an internal window into the thinking of Times international editors as they have faced upheaval within the newsroom surrounding the paper’s Gaza war coverage.

“Issuing guidance like this to ensure accuracy, consistency and nuance in how we cover the news is standard practice,” said Charlie Stadtlander, a Times spokesperson. “Across all our reporting, including complex events like this, we take care to ensure our language choices are sensitive, current and clear to our audiences.”

Issues over style guidance have been among a bevy of internal rifts at the Times over its Gaza coverage. In January, The Intercept reported on disputes in the Times newsroom over issues with an investigative story on systematic sexual violence on October 7. The leak gave rise to a highly unusual internal probe. The company faced harsh criticism for allegedly targeting Times workers of Middle East and North African descent, which Times brass denied. On Monday, executive editor Joe Kahn told staff that the leak investigation had been concluded unsuccessfully.

WhatsApp Debates

Almost immediately after the October 7 attacks and the launch of Israel’s scorched-earth war against Gaza, tensions began to boil within the newsroom over the Times coverage. Some staffers said they believed the paper was going out of its way to defer to Israel’s narrative on the events and was not applying even standards in its coverage. Arguments began fomenting on internal Slack and other chat groups.

The debates between reporters on the Jerusalem bureau-led WhatsApp group, which at one point included 90 reporters and editors, became so intense that Pan, the international editor, interceded.

“We need to do a better job communicating with each other as we report the news, so our discussions are more productive and our disagreements less distracting,” Pan wrote in a November 28 WhatsApp message viewed by The Intercept and first reported by the Wall Street Journal. “At its best, this channel has been a quick, transparent and productive space to collaborate on a complex, fast-moving story. At its worst, it’s a tense forum where the questions and comments can feel accusatory and personal.”

Pan bluntly stated: “Do not use this channel for raising concerns about coverage.”

Among the topics of debate in the Jerusalem bureau WhatsApp group and exchanges on Slack, reviewed by The Intercept and verified with multiple newsroom sources, were Israeli attacks on Al-Shifa Hospital, statistics on Palestinian civilian deaths, the allegations of genocidal conduct by Israel, and President Joe Biden’s pattern of promoting unverified allegations from the Israeli government as fact. (Pan did not respond to a request for comment.)

“It’s not unusual for news companies to set style guidelines. But there are unique standards applied to violence perpetrated by Israel.”

Many of the same debates were addressed in the Times’s Gaza-specific style guidance and have been the subject of intense public scrutiny.

“It’s not unusual for news companies to set style guidelines,” said another Times newsroom source, who also asked for anonymity. “But there are unique standards applied to violence perpetrated by Israel. Readers have noticed and I understand their frustration.”

“Words Like ‘Slaughter’”

The Times memo outlines guidance on a range of phrases and terms. “The nature of the conflict has led to inflammatory language and incendiary accusations on all sides. We should be very cautious about using such language, even in quotations. Our goal is to provide clear, accurate information, and heated language can often obscure rather than clarify the fact,” the memo says.

“Words like ‘slaughter,’ ‘massacre’ and ‘carnage’ often convey more emotion than information. Think hard before using them in our own voice,” according to the memo. “Can we articulate why we are applying those words to one particular situation and not another? As always, we should focus on clarity and precision — describe what happened rather than using a label.”

Despite the memo’s framing as an effort to not employ incendiary language to describe killings “on all sides,” in the Times reporting on the Gaza war, such language has been used repeatedly to describe attacks against Israelis by Palestinians and almost never in the case of Israel’s large-scale killing of Palestinians.

In January, The Intercept published an analysis of New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times coverage of the war from October 7 through November 24 — a period mostly before the new Times guidance was issued. The Intercept analysis showed that the major newspapers reserved terms like “slaughter,” “massacre,” and “horrific” almost exclusively for Israeli civilians killed by Palestinians, rather than for Palestinian civilians killed in Israeli attacks.

The analysis found that, as of November 24, the New York Times had described Israeli deaths as a “massacre” on 53 occasions and those of Palestinians just once. The ratio for the use of “slaughter” was 22 to 1, even as the documented number of Palestinians killed climbed to around 15,000.

The latest Palestinian death toll estimate stands at more than 33,000, including at least 15,000 children — likely undercounts due to Gaza’s collapsed health infrastructure and missing persons, many of whom are believed to have died in the rubble left by Israel’s attacks over the past six months.

Touchy Debates

The Times memo touches on some of the most highly charged — and disputed — language around the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The guidance spells out, for instance, usage of the word “terrorist,” which The Intercept previously reported was at the center of a spirited newsroom debate.

“It is accurate to use ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorist’ in describing the attacks of Oct. 7, which included the deliberate targeting of civilians in killings and kidnappings,” according to the leaked Times memo. “We should not shy away from that description of the events or the attackers, particularly when we provide context and explanation.”

The guidance also instructs journalists to “Avoid ‘fighters’ when referring to the Oct. 7 attack; the term suggests a conventional war rather than a deliberate attack on civilians. And be cautious in using ‘militants,’ which is interpreted in different ways and may be confusing to readers.”

In the memo, the editors tell Times journalists: “We do not need to assign a single label or to refer to the Oct. 7 assault as a ‘terrorist attack’ in every reference; the word is best used when specifically describing attacks on civilians. We should exercise restraint and can vary the language with other accurate terms and descriptions: an attack, an assault, an incursion, the deadliest attack on Israel in decades, etc. Similarly, in addition to ‘terrorists,’ we can vary the terms used to describe the Hamas members who carried out the assault: attackers, assailants, gunmen.”

The Times does not characterize Israel’s repeated attacks on Palestinian civilians as “terrorism,” even when civilians have been targeted. This is also true of Israel’s assaults on protected civilian sites, including hospitals.

In a section with the headline “‘Genocide’ and Other Incendiary Language,” the guidance says, “‘Genocide’ has a specific definition in international law. In our own voice, we should generally use it only in the context of those legal parameters. We should also set a high bar for allowing others to use it as an accusation, whether in quotations or not, unless they are making a substantive argument based on the legal definition.”

Regarding “ethnic cleansing,” the document calls it “another historically charged term,” instructing reporters: “If someone is making such an accusation, we should press for specifics or supply proper context.”

Bucking International Norms

In the cases of describing “occupied territory” and the status of refugees in Gaza, the Times style guidelines run counter to norms established by the United Nations and international humanitarian law.

On the term “Palestine” — a widely used name for both the territory and the U.N.-recognized state — the Times memo contains blunt instructions: “Do not use in datelines, routine text or headlines, except in very rare cases such as when the United Nations General Assembly elevated Palestine to a nonmember observer state, or references to historic Palestine.” The Times guidance resembles that of the Associated Press Stylebook.

The memo directs journalists not to use the phrase “refugee camps” to describe long-standing refugee settlements in Gaza. “While termed refugee camps, the refugee centers in Gaza are developed and densely populated neighborhoods dating to the 1948 war. Refer to them as neighborhoods, or areas, and if further context is necessary, explain how they have historically been called refugee camps.”

The United Nations recognizes eight refugee camps in the Gaza Strip. As of last year, before the war started, the areas were home to more than 600,000 registered refugees. Many are descendants of those who fled to Gaza after being forcibly expelled from their homes in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, which marked the founding of the Jewish state and mass dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

The Israeli government has long been hostile to the historical fact that Palestinians maintain refugee status, because it signifies that they were displaced from lands they have a right to return to.

“It’s like, ‘Oh let’s not say occupation because it might make it look like we’re justifying a terrorist attack.’”

Since October 7, Israel has repeatedly bombed refugee camps in Gaza, including Jabaliya, Al Shati, Al Maghazi, and Nuseirat.

The memo’s instructions on the use of “occupied territories” says, “When possible, avoid the term and be specific (e.g. Gaza, the West Bank, etc.) as each has a slightly different status.” The United Nations, along with much of the world, considers Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem to be occupied Palestinian territories, seized by Israel in the 1967 Arab–Israeli war.

The admonition against the use of the term “occupied territories,” said a Times staffer, obscures the reality of the conflict, feeding into the U.S. and Israeli insistence that the conflict began on October 7.

“You are basically taking the occupation out of the coverage, which is the actual core of the conflict,” said the newsroom source. “It’s like, ‘Oh let’s not say occupation because it might make it look like we’re justifying a terrorist attack.’”