The Times rushed to amplify Hamas’s false claim that an Israeli air strike killed 500 civilians in a Gaza hospital.
The Times rushed to amplify Hamas’s false claim that an Israeli air strike killed 500 civilians in a Gaza hospital.
Welcome back to Forgotten Fact Checks, a weekly column produced by National Review’s News Desk. This week, we look back at even more disappointing coverage of the Israel–Hamas war, refute Axios’s claim that an open U.S. southern border is a conservative myth, and cover more media misses.
New York Times Admits Mistake on Gaza Hospital Explosion Coverage
The New York Times published an editor’s note on Monday acknowledging that its editors “should have taken more care with the initial presentation” of the coverage of an explosion outside a Gaza hospital last week; the paper had been quick to run with the Hamas-backed Gaza Health Ministry’s claims that the blast was caused by an Israeli air strike that killed hundreds.
President Biden has since made clear that Israel was not to blame for the blast, which U.S. officials say killed between 100 and 300 people. The Israel Defense Forces have said the explosion was caused by a rocket misfire launched by Islamic Jihad, a conclusion that’s since been confirmed by video analyses conducted by the Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal, and CNN.
“The Times’s initial accounts attributed the claim of Israeli responsibility to Palestinian officials, and noted that the Israeli military said it was investigating the blast. However, the early versions of the coverage — and the prominence it received in a headline, news alert and social media channels — relied too heavily on claims by Hamas, and did not make clear that those claims could not immediately be verified. The report left readers with an incorrect impression about what was known and how credible the account was,” the editor’s note said.
“The Times continued to update its coverage as more information became available, reporting the disputed claims of responsibility and noting that the death toll might be lower than initially reported,” the note added. “Within two hours, the headline and other text at the top of the website reflected the scope of the explosion and the dispute over responsibility.”
The editor’s note concluded: “Given the sensitive nature of the news during a widening conflict, and the prominent promotion it received, Times editors should have taken more care with the initial presentation, and been more explicit about what information could be verified. Newsroom leaders continue to examine procedures around the biggest breaking news events — including for the use of the largest headlines in the digital report — to determine what additional safeguards may be warranted.”
Just three days ago, New York Times opinion columnist Michelle Goldberg argued that it is “impossible to know what to believe in this hideous war.”
“As a few bleak anecdotes illustrate, it is often impossible, in real time, for outsiders to know what is happening in the ceaselessly reigniting war between Israel and the Palestinians,” she wrote, explaining that she went to bed on the day of the hospital blast last week “assuming, as many people did, that an Israeli airstrike had killed at least 500 people in Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza.”
But it would have taken little effort at all to wait for additional evidence before quickly amplifying Hamas’s version of events.
NBC News’s “disinformation” reporter, Ben Collins, reposted a message on X complaining about how difficult it is to tell what’s real from fake on X, while also peddling the disinformation that 500 people were killed in a hospital bombing.
And Al Jazeera claimed its investigation “found no grounds for the Israeli army’s claim that the strike on the al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza was caused by a failed rocket launch.”
ASPI Cyber, Tech & Security analyst Nathan Ruser notes that Al Jazeera’s investigation was “flawed” because it concluded in part that the explosion was from an Iron Dome–intercepted rocket that fell/exploded. “This is demonstrably untrue as the Iron-Dome is a terminal-phase interceptor. It does not intercept in the launch phase.”
Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib were quick to jump on the claims that it was an Israeli strike that caused the hospital blast — but only Omar later retracted the claim.
“Our office cited an AP report yesterday that the IDF had hit a Baptist hospital in Gaza. Since then, the IDF denied responsibility and the US intelligence assessment is that this was not done by Israel,” Omar posted on X. “It is a reminder that information is often unreliable and disputed in the fog of war (especially on Twitter where misinformation is rampant). We all have a responsibility to ensure information we are sharing is from credible sources and to acknowledge as new reports come in.”
CBS Evening News continued to suggest that Israel was at fault for the explosion even after President Biden and the Israeli government said that was not the case. The show reported on X that the “humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues to grow following a hospital explosion that killed hundreds. CBS News spoke to a doctor who says Israel’s army had previously warned the facility to evacuate.” One minute into the accompanying video, after repeatedly echoing claims that Israel was at fault, the outlet reveals that Biden has said it was not the Israeli military.
“From the street of Tehran to war-torn Yemen, few believe the president and say Israel is squarely responsible for the explosion as well as the widespread misery unfolding in Gaza,” CBS reporter Imtiaz Tyab said.
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues to grow following a hospital explosion that killed hundreds. CBS News spoke to a doctor who says Israel’s army had previously warned the facility to evacuate. pic.twitter.com/QhJhOomDG1
— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) October 18, 2023
While the New York Times acknowledged its shortcomings in its coverage of the hospital blast, it recently defended its decision to rehire a Gaza-based freelance videographer who has a history of praising Hitler on social media.
Soliman Hijjy previously did work for the Times from 2018 to 2021. He is now covering the Israel–Hamas war — and was involved in the outlet’s reporting on the explosion outside the Gaza hospital — despite media watchdog HonestReporting having unearthed Hijjy’s troubling social-media posts in 2022.
In 2018, Hijjy captioned a photo of himself that translated to “I’m in tune like Hitler during the holocaust” or “in a state of harmony as Hitler was during the Holocaust.”
He also posted “How great you are, Hitler” on Facebook in 2012.
In 2022, the Times said it was looking into the posts. But now, the outlet is defending the freelancer.
“We reviewed problematic social media posts by Mr. Hijjy when they first came to light in 2022 and took a variety of actions to ensure he understood our concerns and could adhere to our standards if he wished to do freelance work for us in the future,” a spokesperson for the Times told Fox News. “Mr. Hijjy followed those steps and has maintained high journalistic standards. He has delivered important and impartial work at great personal risk in Gaza during this conflict.”
Israel’s former prime minister Naftali Bennett criticized the media’s penchant for equivocation during an appearance on CNN last week.
“There are no two sides to this hospital [attack]. Either it was bombed by Israel, or it was targeted by someone else on the Palestinian side,” Bennett told Anderson Cooper.
“If two people come and say — one says it’s raining outside and the other says it’s dry, you don’t bring the quotes of both sides. You just Goddamn open the window and look whether it’s raining or not. That’s what we did and this hospital, in fact, it’s a parking lot, was hit definitely, 100 percent by Islamic Jihad barrage,” he said.
“So, Anderson, with all due respect there aren’t two sides to this. Not everything is two sides, and I have a feeling that if it wasn’t the state of Israel then I think the global media would have behaved very differently,” he added.
Many of the same mainstream reporters who were quick to accept Hamas’s version of events on the hospital blast have demanded more and more evidence to back up Israel’s claims that Hamas beheaded Israeli babies.
New York magazine Intelligencer features writer Eric Levitz was widely panned for a post on X over the weekend about the issue. He shared a report from an international team of forensic pathologists that revealed babies were found decapitated, though investigators said it would be “difficult to ascertain whether they were decapitated before or after death, as well as how they were beheaded ‘whether cut off by knife or blown off by RPG.’”
“Last night, I asserted that this report indicated that babies were beheaded,” Levitz wrote one day after sharing the report. “This was an overstatement. I should have said that the report established that babies were found headless, a fact that lends plausibility to claims of beheading, but which does not prove them.”
Last night, I asserted that this report indicated that babies were beheaded. This was an overstatement. I should have said that the report established that babies were found headless, a fact that lends plausibility to claims of beheading, but which does not prove them.
— Eric Levitz (@EricLevitz) October 22, 2023
The BBC, meanwhile, has done an about-face on its policy of not using the word “terrorists” to describe Hamas. The outlet, which had instead described Hamas as “freedom fighters,” “gunmen,” or “militants,” will now refer to the group as a “proscribed terrorist organization.”
“The BBC confirmed it was committed to continued dialogue. It also confirmed it is no longer BBC practice to call Hamas militants. Instead, the BBC describes the group as a proscribed terrorist organisation by the UK government and others, or simply as Hamas,” the Board of Deputies of British Jews wrote in a press release on Friday.
Other outlets have continued to show their Israel-shaped blind spots.
The Associated Press is instructing reporters not to refer to Hamas as a terrorist organization. The AP’s “Israel-Hamas Topical Guide,” first highlighted by the Washington Free Beacon, explains that because “terrorism and terrorist have become politicized, and often are applied inconsistently . . . the AP is not using the terms for specific actions or groups, other than in direct quotations.”
Instead, the AP suggests journalists should call Hamas members “militants” or “fighters, attackers or combatants” depending on the context.
The Washington Post, meanwhile, captioned a photo of Israeli children saying they had been “detained” by Hamas terrorists. The outlet later stealth-edited the caption to say the children were “taken hostage.”
Headline Fail of the Week
Axios offered readers a helpful explainer on “The myth of a U.S.-Mexico ‘open border.’”
The U.S. southern border is “more fortified than it’s ever been,” the outlet reports, and accuses conservatives of peddling the “myth” of an open border.
“An Axios review of news stories found that the ‘open border’ language took off during the Obama administration as conservatives worked to thwart planned immigration reform,” the report says.
“By using the term ‘open border,’ conservatives — including Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who is seeking the role of House speaker — are suggesting that anyone can get into the U.S. without much hassle. But the reality is that the southern border is more fortified than it’s ever been,” it claims.
This despite U.S. immigration agents having encountered more than 200,000 migrants who crossed the southern border unlawfully last month — the highest level recorded this year.
Media Misses
• The White House social-media team posted a picture President Biden meeting with Delta Force operators in Israel last week that showed the faces of special-ops members. “As soon as this was brought to our attention, we immediately deleted the photo,” the White House said in a statement to Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy. “We regret the error and any issues this may have caused.”
• Representative Adam Schiff falsely claimed that the House speaker is in charge of approving the final tally of electoral votes for presidential races. Schiff was attempting to make the case against electing Representative Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) as House speaker. “Today, Republicans may make Jim Jordan the Speaker. Jordan would preside over the counting of electoral votes in the next election. After he was deeply involved in trying to overturn the last one.” The post received a Community Note on X that read, “The vice president, not the speaker, presides over counting of electoral college votes; and whomever is chosen as speaker in Oct. 2023 will only be speaker during the 1/6/25 electoral count if House Rs retain majority in Nov. 2024.”
• Maxim Australia included a biological male on its list of Australia’s top 100 “fine and fierce femmes” for 2023. Former Australian football player and coach Danielle Laidley, who identifies as a transgender woman, ranked 92 on the list.