New doubts are emerging about the New York Times’s coverage of sexual violence during the October 7 Hamas-led attack — and the paper owes its readers an open and transparent explanation.

The latest questions are centered around Anat Schwartz, an Israeli who co-authored several of the paper’s most widely circulated reports, including the now well-known and scrutinized December 28 article headlined: “‘Screams Without Words’’ How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7.”

Independent researchers scrutinized the online record, and raised serious questions about Schwartz. First, she has apparently never been a reporter but is actually a filmmaker, who the Times suddenly hired in October. You would expect the paper to look for someone with actual journalistic experience, especially for a story as sensitive as this one, written during the fog of war. Surely the paper had enough of its own correspondents on staff who could have been assigned to it

Next, the researchers found that Schwartz had not hidden her strong feelings online. There are screenshots of her “liking” certain posts that repeated the “40 beheaded baby” hoax, and that endorsed another hysterical post that urged the Israeli army to “turn Gaza into a slaughterhouse,” and called Palestinians “human animals.”.

Just this morning, more evidence emerged online; Schwartz apparently also served in Israeli Military Intelligence

Finally, one of her co-authors on two of the reports was Adam Sella, who is her nephew.

The New York Times imposes strict rules on its reporters to maintain the appearance of objectivity. Reporters are not supposed to attend demonstrations of any kind, wear campaign buttons, or post opinions on social media. By hiring Anat Schwartz, the paper clearly violated its own guidelines, and it should publicly explain and apologize.