IGN's Palestinian Aid Article

Overview

IGN's Palestinian Aid Article refers to a post made by gaming outlet IGN linking to Palestinian aid groups amid airstrikes taking place during the 2021 Israel-Palestine crisis. IGN also added the Palestinian flag next to their logo on the website. The article surprised people, as it was unusual to see a gaming publication take a stance in the conflict, and cheered by progressives and pro-Palestine supporters. However, the piece was later removed by upper management, who posted a statement that IGN supports "all people affected by tragic events." This caused the editorial staff at IGN to post an open letter to upper management expressing their frustration at being superseded and asking that the original post be republished.

Background

On May 14th, IGN^[1] published an article titled "How to Help Palestinian Civilians," writing:

Palestinian civilians are currently suffering in great numbers in Jerusalem, Gaza, and West Bank, due to Israeli forces. The NYTimes reported that most of the deaths so far have occurred in Gaza. We want to highlight the humanitarian crisis in Palestine because, while there has been fighting in the region for decades, recent escalations have seen a catastrophic loss of Palestinian lives.

The article linked to several humanitarian and charity groups to which readers could donate to aid civilians. IGN also added the Palestinian flag next to their logo.

Developments

IGN's article initially surprised and was celebrated by Twitter users. User @IdahoBones^[3] tweeted a screenshot of the IGN logo and simply wrote, "wow," gaining over 1,000 retweets and 16,000 likes (shown below, left). User @BaselAnabtawi^[2] tweeted, "In all my years witnessing the news over Palestine, I've never seen a major western publication lean in like this. Well done @IGN," gaining over 80 retweets and 210 likes (shown below, right).

IGN Israel, meanwhile, condemned the statement on its social channels^[4] (shown below).

Early in the morning on May 17th, 2021, the piece was removed from IGN and the IGN Twitter account^[5] published a statement saying the article "mistakenly left the impression" IGN was aligned with a political side in the conflict and that IGN supported all people affected by tragedy (shown below, left). The statement was met with skepticism, as Twitter users suspected that it was composed by upper management and not the editorial staff that wrote the original piece. User @MitchyD^[6] tweeted, "I don’t believe for a second that anyone you know wrote this" (shown below, right).

Those suspicions were affirmed when, later on May 17th, the IGN editorial staff published an open letter addressed to "Leadership at IGN, Ziff Davis, and J2 Global," their owning companies, that they were greatly disappointed and frustrated by the removal of the piece.^[7] The piece included statements such as:

We, the undersigned employees of IGN, are appalled by the recent management decision to subvert our editorial autonomy and remove our post directing aid to the Palestinian civilians currently suffering a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem.

Following an IGN-wide meeting this morning, we have come to understand that this was a clear instance of corporate overreach and demonstrated blatant disregard for the most basic standards of journalistic integrity and editorial independence.

As of May 18th, 2021, the article has not been republished.

Search Interest

External References