When news breaks, and public interest is highest, information is lowest.
This was true on Tuesday when there was an explosion at a hospital in Gaza.
It seemed that when the stakes were highest, newsroom standards were the lowest. That's what needs to be addressed pic.twitter.com/cv8GgIzqcV
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) October 19, 2023
The former CNN host called the media’s coverage of Tuesday’s blast “disturbing,” particularly because there’s not been much in the way of follow up.
“War is already hell, it should not be made worse by misreporting, but I fear that on Tuesday the media made a bad situation worse,” Stelter said. “They actually did harm as opposed to trying to do the opposite.”
[He’s not wrong. In fact, this is a pretty good measure of just how badly the MSM performed. The root of that failure is their preference for treating Hamas claims at face value while treating Israeli claims with deep skepticism. I’d be okay with deep skepticism applied equally, but that’s not what American media did, nor have they learned any lessons. See below. — Ed]
"Palestinian health officials" = Hamas. For some reason, American news outlets don't like disclosing that, along with the unreliability of Hamas propaganda claims. https://t.co/H0yjhGwkEP
— Ed Morrissey (@EdMorrissey) October 19, 2023
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