As the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens and calls for a cease-fire grow continuously louder, we, as student-journalists, must confront two horrific truths.

The first is painfully clear — the Israeli military campaign, one of the most destructive and deadly in recent history, according to experts, has killed over 30,000 Gazans as of this editorial’s publication. An invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s last “safe zone” where an estimated 1.4 million are sheltering, has drawn concern and condemnation from President Joe Biden and other top United States officials. A United Nations representative warned of a slaughter.

The second is the impact of Western media bias, a dangerous disease that minimizes Palestinian suffering to Western audiences through dehumanizing language, omission and false conflation.

A quantitative analysis performed in January by The Intercept, an investigative news outlet, paints a damning picture. In the first six weeks after Oct. 7, three major American newspapers of record — the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times — heavily skewed their coverage into the Israeli government’s narrative. After analyzing over 1,000 news articles, they found that outlets used active and emotive language — “massacre” and “slaughter” — when referring to Israeli death, but used passive language — “killed” or “died” — for Palestinian death.

As student-journalists at a school with no journalism program, we often look to mainstream media coverage for guidance in our reporting. We never anticipated being in this position — continuously reporting on war crimes, a worsening humanitarian crisis and a divided student body. But what we have witnessed from major news outlets as we sought guidance has undermined the journalistic standards that we both hold ourselves to and expect from well-established media organizations.

Journalists have a responsibility to remain impartial in news coverage and reserve personal biases or opinions for columns and editorials. In October, BBC’s world affairs editor, John Simpson, released an article explaining why it is never a news organization’s place to tell an audience “who are the bad guys.” He added that news coverage should remain as objective as possible, so that readers can make up their own minds with the information presented.

Although remaining unbiased is standard journalistic practice — one most Western media has failed to adhere to — it can often feel as if we are losing our humanity when forgoing our bias during reporting. Between the time an article is written and the time it reaches the editor-in-chief’s desk, Israel’s military, both directly and indirectly, has killed hundreds, if not thousands, more Palestinians, mostly women and children.

This Editorial Board steadfastly believes that calling for the end of the Israeli military’s near-obliteration of Gaza and its citizens is not radical.

We will always adhere to a standard of impartiality in our news coverage, but we cannot forget that Pipe Dream got its name when a group of past editors stood together to protest the Vietnam War. We took a stand when our country unjustly killed thousands of innocent civilians during a reactionary military campaign. We still, decades later, support the countless students and organizations that have called for peace and a permanent cease-fire.

As an Editorial Board, we take the responsibility that comes with the power of the written word extremely seriously and wish that the media outlets we looked up to did too.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Pipe Dream Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings.