The Times of Gaza, the Hamas blast and the Associated Press: A warning on the accuracy and fairness of coverage of breaking news events
The Times is far from alone in relaying the claims of interested parties as facts. Other news outlets also cited Hamas, which governs Gaza, in their coverage of the hospital explosion. According to Gaza officials, the blast was an Israeli air strike. The AP cited the “Health Ministry” in its headline.
Israel subsequently denied being at fault and blamed an errant rocket launch by the Palestinian faction group Islamic Jihad, which has in turn denied responsibility. American and other international officials have said their evidence indicates that the rocket came from Palestinian fighter positions.
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 headline and text of the website at the top showed the scope of the explosion and the dispute over responsibility within two hours.
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.
The audiences’ perceptions of media outlets’ fairness determine how much trust they have – not just in the veracity of specific coverage but the independence of their journalists. Speed may matter a lot to readers, viewers and listeners. When stakes are high, fairness and accuracy still matter.
Hamas is not a terrorist organization: It just unleashed a deadly Israeli attack on the Gazan people and killed hundreds of people
By contrast, the advocacy group Physicians for Human Rights put out a call on the day of the blast for the protection of civilian life and for the incident to be the subject of an independent investigation. It notably did not project blame.
A series of prominent news outlets and public figures organizations appeared to rely on Hamas’ claims as authoritative with little or little acknowledgment of how much had been verified before publication.
An investigation done by the Israeli military showed that an Israeli soldier was likely to have fired the fatal shot, but he did not give his name. A government spokeswoman’s expression of sadness for her death a year later was insufficient for Abu Akleh’s family. An FBI investigation that began last year has not been resolved.
The Times’ selection of journalists has come under sharp scrutiny in recent days as well. An Israeli diplomat chastised the paper for employing Soliman Hijjy as a freelance videographer in Gaza to document the conflict. Over the course of the past 11 years, Hijjy has had praise for Adolf Hitler and invoked the Nazi leader in social media postings. A spokesperson for the Times says the paper reviewed those “problematic” postings last year, when the issue was first raised, and took actions “to ensure he understood our concerns and could adhere to our standards.”
Unlike in some other war zones, such as in Ukraine, it’s nearly impossible for outside reporters to get into Gaza, even from Israel. Most news outlets cover it remotely or rely on local journalists whose families are at risk from Israeli strikes.
Hamas is the source of most of the misinformation about the events in Gaza. Hamas denied in an interview with NPR that the group had killed hundreds of people at a music concert in the Israeli desert despite accounts by survivors and Israeli officials. The attackers killed civilians, as pointed out by Inskeep.
Yet Hamas is much more than that. It is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the European Union. Indeed, it just unleashed the most deadly attack in Israeli history, with more than 1,400 people dead, and more than 200 people taken hostage.
Comment on Propagation and coverage of X-ray astronomy” by W.A.C. Brown and S.T. Peirce
The BBC later issued a statement citing the full breadth of its coverage but saying that the degree of speculation in his report was, in retrospect, wrong.
The stakes are very high. The sources can prove unreliable. There are not a lot of concrete facts. Readers rewards publications that quickly push out information.