The devastating explosion at a Gaza hospital on October 17 provoked soul-searching in US corporate media—over the willingness of press outlets to quote Gaza officials who attributed the calamity to an Israeli airstrike.
“News Outlets Backtrack on Gaza Blast After Relying on Hamas as Key Source,” NPR (10/24/23) reported. “The initial coverage of a deadly blast at a Gaza hospital last week offers a fresh reminder of how hard it can be to get the news right—and what happens when it goes awry,” wrote NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik.
“How the Media Got the Hospital Explosion Wrong” was the headline of an Atlantic article by Yascha Mounk (10/23/23), which asserted:
As more details about the blast emerged, the initial claims so credulously repeated by the world’s leading news outlets came to look untenable….
The cause of the tragedy, it appears, is the opposite of what news outlets around the world first reported. Rather than having been an Israeli attack on civilians, the balance of evidence suggests that it was a result of terrorists’ disregard for the lives of the people on whose behalf they claim to be fighting.
The New York Times (10/23/23) offered an editorial mea culpa, saying its initial coverage “relied too heavily on claims by Hamas, and did not make clear that those claims could not immediately be verified.”
(What seems to be the New York Times‘ first mention of the blast—posted on its live feed on the “Israel/Hamas War” at 4:41 pm EDT on October 17—was headed “Hundreds Die in an Explosion at a Gaza Hospital, Setting Off Exchanges of Blame.” The first paragraph concluded, “The authorities blamed an Israeli airstrike, but the assertion was disputed by the Israel Defense Forces, which blamed an errant rocket fired by an armed Palestinian faction.” By 7:32 that evening, the feed was headed, “Israelis and Palestinians Blame Each Other for Blast at Gaza Hospital That Killed Hundreds.”)
Hellbound and Down 