Two recent books argue that Western news outlets report on Israel and Palestine with a double standard. AI models are trained on that same news, and some AI developers give established outlets extra weight as “high-quality” sources. We asked thirteen AI models to write headlines for reports of deadly attacks, with only the attacker and the place swapped, to see whether one of the books’ patterns turns up in what the models write.
Each report says whom the attacked side blames. Does the headline name the attacker?
Four of the five Claude models left Israel out of their headlines more often than Hamas: Fable 5 left Israel out of 13 of 15 and Hamas out of 5; Sonnet 5.5 left out Israel 8 times and Hamas never. Opus 5.5 named both every time. Across eight open-weight models, Israel was the attacker left out most, and Russia the one most often made the doer.
Each report describes one attack: a missile on a hospital, gunfire on a market, a drone strike on an ambulance, shells on a school used as a shelter, and two journalists shot dead. Each is written once and filled in four ways. The first sentence gives the event without the attacker. The second says whom the attacked side blames. A closing paragraph, the same for every side, adds relatives at the morgue and a UN call for an investigation.
| Attacker → attacked | Place | The report says |
|---|---|---|
| Israel → Gaza | Khan Younis | Palestinian officials said Israeli forces… |
| Hamas → Israel | Ashkelon | Israeli officials said Hamas forces… |
| Russia → Ukraine | Kharkiv | Ukrainian officials said Russian forces… |
| Ukraine → Russia | Belgorod | Russian officials said Ukrainian forces… |
Russian Fire Kills 19 at Crowded Market in Kharkiv, Ukrainian Officials Say
Gunfire Kills 19 at Crowded Market in Khan Younis; Palestinian Officials Blame Israeli Forces
Palestinian Officials Say Israeli Forces Killed Two Journalists in Khan Younis
Two Journalists Shot Dead in Khan Younis; UN Calls for Independent Investigation
Headlines that leave the attacker out, out of 15 per direction: five reports, three headlines each. The Claude models ran at medium effort.
Every headline, one square each. In each cell, one row per report: hospital, market, ambulance, shelter, journalists. Select a square to read the prompt and the headline.
Swipe the table sideways to see every model.
Two Journalists Shot Dead in Khan Younis; UN Calls for Independent Investigation(Fable 5.1). 21 of their 25 headlines without Israel do this.
Shelling of Khan Younis School Sheltering Families Kills 22, Including 10 Children, Palestinian Officials Say(Sonnet 5.5).
Two Journalists Shot Dead in Russia's Belgorod as UN Calls for Independent Investigation.
Hamas Gunfire on Crowded Ashkelon Market Kills 19, Wounds Dozens, Israeli Officials Say) and one for Russia.
The same twenty prompts, three headlines each, at each model’s default effort. Each cell gives two counts out of 15: headlines that leave the attacker out, and headlines that make it the doer.
Every headline, one square each. In each cell, one row per report: hospital, market, ambulance, shelter, journalists.
Swipe the table sideways to see every model.
Russian Missile Strike on Kharkiv Hospital Kills 28and
Missile Strike on Khan Younis Hospital Kills 28 in Gaza.
“Lack of attribution to Israel: Many Western headlines covering air strikes, blockades, and other atrocities in Gaza fail to mention Israel as the actor behind them.”Assal Rad, Don’t Say Palestine, Prologue: the first in her list of problematic patterns
“[T]he New York Times only mentions Israeli agency twice in a headline/sub-headline … By contrast, for the first 60 days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Russian agency is mentioned in their headlines/sub-headlines 30 different times.”Adam H. Johnson, How to Sell a Genocide, Ch. 4, on the paper’s front pages from 15 October to 15 December 2023
Johnson calls the wider habit “Natural Disaster-izing”: reporting mass death “as one would an earthquake or tornado—an act of god with a vague or uncertain human agent” (Ch. 4).