Investigative reporter, David Zweig, performed a deep-dive into the Hamas claims that Israel had bombed the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza on October 17, killing at least 500 people.
Zweig's description of digging into the story to attempt to determine the source of the death toll is fascinating. It's fascinating in the sense that getting a peek into the minutiae of the techniques and process of how anyone performs their work is captivating to the curious among us.
Have you ever watched 'How It's Made'? Yeah, it's like that. Read David's story for the nitty gritty details.
Did the Entire Media Industry Misquote a Hamas Spokesperson?
— David Zweig (@davidzweig) October 28, 2023
I asked a dozen reporters and news outlets for the source of a statement they attributed to Hamas. None of them answered.
INVESTIGATION and a case study of the failure of standards in media:https://t.co/5zDnhD9Iz9
The problem is that David Zweig's efforts should not be remarkable.
We read his account of attempting to contact reporters, communications departments, and media relations personnel - all in attempt to get an answer to a very simple question: Where did you get the '500 deaths' figure?
What David was doing is called journalism, and it looks like some form of mystical elf magic these days because it's so often lacking.
This is such a fascinating topic
— PoIiMath (@politicalmath) October 28, 2023
The entire industry of news gathering has apparently lost it's ability to investigate, especially when dealing with numbers and data.
Such an opportunity for renewal and building standards back up from the ground floor https://t.co/A7pFUAbt2k
After all the dire warnings about the spread of misinformation on the TwitterX platform, it often seems that one of the greatest impacts of social media news sharing has been a deterioration in the quality of traditional media.
It's not just the case that we have access to more information now and can more easily spot bad reporting, although that is true as well. Traditional media has always competed to be the first to break a story, but competing against social media, where there are often no standards, has resulted in the old outlets relaxing their own standards.
The best way to compete against social media news reporting would be to maintain the claim that they provide higher quality, more reliable news.
All too often, they choose the opposite, and this is one glaring example.
David called me this week to help track down the source of the claim of "at least 500 killed." It was interesting to go down this rabbit hole with him, doing a series of Google and Twitter searches and reading article after article, eventually tracking down what appears to be the… https://t.co/1qkAhtGIDa
— Kelley K (@KelleyKga) October 28, 2023
They scoured the reporting from various high-profile media outlets, tried to contact those responsible for the reporting, and couldn't get answers.
Eventually, they determined that the 500 deaths claim likely originated from a mistranslation of an Arabic-language video that nobody in the mainstream media bothered to verify on their own.
The result? People believed the initial reporting about the hospital bombing and the death toll, resulting in violence across the globe.
Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that. @POTUS this is what happens when you refuse to facilitate a ceasefire & help de-escalate.
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) October 17, 2023
Your war and destruction only approach has opened my eyes and many… https://t.co/mZYoifT7bj
Daylight revealed that the hospital was still intact and the damage was relegated to the parking lot.
The damage done by the media's shoddy reporting, however, had already been done. Rashida Tlaib still has her tweet claiming Israel bombed the hospital 'killing 500 Palestinians' as the second tweet in her timeline.
She added a clarification eight days later saying an investigation was necessary because claims by both sides had been disputed.
Well done, everyone.
Those guys copying each other’s reporting based on a botched translation without giving any credit to the original report… they’re the ones who complain that we can’t trust information on Twitter anymore.
— Rath (@mak3333) October 28, 2023
The 'advantage' of Twitter is that any responsible user of the platform should recognize that you shouldn't trust any information without further verification.
The New York Times is not supposed to work that way.
Great reporting. Looks like The NY Times should be updating their editor’s note. What an epic and treacherous mass media fail.
— Eli Klein (@TheEliKlein) October 28, 2023
All the media had to do when Trump called them out for 'Fake News' and in the face of social media citizen journalists was be better.
Instead, they failed harder.
So refreshing to see real journalism. Amazing work, David and @KelleyKga.
— Kristen Mag (@kristenmag) October 28, 2023
There's no doubt people are often drawn to the reporting that fits their preferred narrative. It's also quite clear people are drawn towards quality journalism.
JFC.
— Pradheep J. Shanker (@Neoavatara) October 28, 2023
If this is accurate (and David's reporting seems solid) then the media literally may cost people their lives. https://t.co/R42jjBQw7p
The stakes are high, and our news outlets are not meeting the challenge.
Excellent reporting
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) October 28, 2023
Excellent, indeed.
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