Top Journalism Professors Call On New York Times To Investigate Hamas Rape Story

More than 50 tenured journalism professors from top universities have signed a letter calling on the New York Times to address questions about a major investigative report that described a “pattern of gender-based violence” in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.

The letter follows months of criticism and concerns raised by outside critics as well as some Times staffers about the credibility of its sourcing and the editorial process for the story.

The letter, signed by professors at colleges including New York University, the University of Pennsylvania, Emory and the…   University of Texas, asks the Times to “immediately commission a group of journalism experts to conduct a thorough and full independent review of the reporting, editing and publishing processes for this story and release a report of the findings.”

The letter, obtained by The Washington Post, acknowledged the impossibility of “writing perfectly accurate drafts of history in real time” but emphasized that news organizations must be willing to interrogate their own work.

Relatives of a woman slain in the attack, whose story became a central focus of the Times report, cast doubts on reporting suggesting that she was raped, while other critics pointed to discrepancies in various accounts offered by an eyewitness cited in the story.