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It's easy to screw up on breaking news but you have to admit when you do

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Re: It's easy to screw up on breaking news but you have to admit when you do

#21

Post by JumpCrisscross »

mattmaroon wrote: post #8

I’m still not sure what to believe on that story. It’s not like Israel to intentionally blow up a hospital full of civilians. It’s not unlike them to do it on accident. It’s not unlike Hamas to blow up anything (intentionally or otherwise) and Israel and the US would both probably say they did it whether they did or did not. The story would look the same no matter who did it.

> still not sure what to believe on that story

Do this. A lesson from air crash investigations: wait a week. Until then, discount everything.

> story would look the same no matter who did it

This is not true. Too many countries with disparate motivations had eyes on the area. We haven’t had time for intelligence to be scrubbed for public release. Again, give it a week. In the meantime, observe the meta story; who concludes what with high confidence.

Re: It's easy to screw up on breaking news but you have to admit when you do

#22

Post by threeseed »

I just find this all so pointless.

News organisations can't be expected to verify every claim. And so all they can do is report the claims of what should be trusted sources i.e. governments, NGOs etc. And to be fair every country spins the truth so it's not like this incident is without precedent.

So you get to choose. Either you have breaking news or you don't. But you can't ask for breaking news and have them verify each claim. It's just not possible.

Re: It's easy to screw up on breaking news but you have to admit when you do

#23

Post by stevesearer »

jdeisenberg wrote: post #4

That’s why NPR (National Public Radio in the US) uses a disclaimer: “This is a developing story. Some things that get reported by the media will later turn out to be wrong. We will focus on reports from police officials and other authorities, credible news outlets and reporters who are at the scene. We will update as the situation develops.”

I imagine the issue is less that it is a “developing story” and more about the speed at which certain stories/headlines are published and how they are framed.

In this case one has to ask whether there would have been a NYT subscriber news alert had the first reports been that it was an errant Hamas rocket.

Re: It's easy to screw up on breaking news but you have to admit when you do

#24

Post by [deleted] »

woodruffw wrote: post #17
readthenotes1 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I. e., "We are a gossip rag and not to be trusted for credible journalism." It is no better a disclaimer than the "Palestinian officials say" clause

What is your actual counterposition here? That news outfits shouldn’t publish anything until it’s incontrovertible? This is not a practical position to hold; the NPR’s qualification seems reasonable to me in light of the situation.

[deleted]

Re: It's easy to screw up on breaking news but you have to admit when you do

#25

Post by cmrdporcupine »

bluefishinit wrote: post #18

> The Israeli Defense Forces said that the blast was the result of a misfire from a Hamas rocket, and President Biden, citing Department of Defense evidence, has backed that claim. These same people claimed to have seen pictures of 40 beheaded babies last week and had to immediately walk that back. The IDF also claimed not to have assassinated journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, but months later admitted to it. This is a w…

This is the thing I'm finding frustrating. I don't care what "team" people think they're on. The reality on the ground is for regular people there are no teams and it's just tragedy.

But I'm seeing a lot of vociferous blow-back on the Gaza hospital thing -- maybe rightfully so -- but so much less on the other "side." When concerns were brought up about the beheading things, and other claims of veracity it was treated as callous quibbling.

This is not whataboutism: The fundamental reality is it doesn't in the grand scheme of things matter who caused the casualties in the specific instance in the hospital. What matters is that a cessation of conflict is not being considered, and that civilians are being murdered by political actors as a result.

Any ethical grown-up in charge would be working to de-escalate.

Re: It's easy to screw up on breaking news but you have to admit when you do

#26

Post by mattmaroon »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #21
mattmaroon wrote: post #8

I’m still not sure what to believe on that story. It’s not like Israel to intentionally blow up a hospital full of civilians. It’s not unlike them to do it on accident. It’s not unlike Hamas to blow up anything (intentionally or otherwise) and Israel and the US would both probably say they did it whether they did or did not. The story would look the same no matter who did it.

> still not sure what to believe on that story Do this. A lesson from air crash investigations: wait a week. Until then, discount everything. > story would look the same no matter who did it This is not true. Too many countries with disparate motivations had eyes on the area. We haven’t had time for intelligence to be scrubbed for public release. Again, give it a week. In the meantime, observe the meta story; who con…

I’m not sure what will change in a few more days but I do already discount everything.

I’m not sure what your second comment means exactly, can you elaborate?

Re: It's easy to screw up on breaking news but you have to admit when you do

#27

Post by bnralt »

He's not wrong, but there seems to be an issue of the Gell-Mann amnesia going on here. The mass media has consistently been terrible about reporting unverified claims, and this is nothing new. And numerous cases were even worse than the Gaza attack, with no effort to correct things or verify what happened at all.

Here's just one example off the top of my head. When the last Democratic primary began, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders held a meeting. The New York Times reported on it, and said that it was cordial[1]. A year later during the heat of the primary, Warren's poll numbers started dropping and Sanders' started rising, and her campaign suddenly claimed that Sanders' had said during the meeting that a woman couldn't be president. The New York Times was happy to report her claims[2], and didn't even mention that their reporting of the meeting when it happened showed no evidence of this.

There are plenty of other examples where the New York Times and other members of the media have either made an article about unverified accusations, or made fairly misleading reporting that would lead readers astray.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/13/us/politics/elizabeth-war... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/13/us/politics/bernie-sander...

Re: It's easy to screw up on breaking news but you have to admit when you do

#28

Post by adhamsalama »

bluefishinit wrote: post #18

> The Israeli Defense Forces said that the blast was the result of a misfire from a Hamas rocket, and President Biden, citing Department of Defense evidence, has backed that claim. These same people claimed to have seen pictures of 40 beheaded babies last week and had to immediately walk that back. The IDF also claimed not to have assassinated journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, but months later admitted to it. This is a w…

Yet people still believe them, spread their lies, and believe the US, the country that lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to invade them, and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, because they think if they don't believe Israel and the US, then they side with terrorists.

Re: It's easy to screw up on breaking news but you have to admit when you do

#29

Post by bluefishinit »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #25
bluefishinit wrote: post #18

> The Israeli Defense Forces said that the blast was the result of a misfire from a Hamas rocket, and President Biden, citing Department of Defense evidence, has backed that claim. These same people claimed to have seen pictures of 40 beheaded babies last week and had to immediately walk that back. The IDF also claimed not to have assassinated journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, but months later admitted to it. This is a w…

This is the thing I'm finding frustrating. I don't care what "team" people think they're on. The reality on the ground is for regular people there are no teams and it's just tragedy. But I'm seeing a lot of vociferous blow-back on the Gaza hospital thing -- maybe rightfully so -- but so much less on the other "side." When concerns were brought up about the beheading things, and other claims of veracity it was treated…

I agree. The bombing didn't stop after the hospital. Shortly after a major bakery was bombed by Israel, another yesterday along with the third oldest church in the world that was harboring people who lost their houses. The bombing continues now, 6000 bombs were dropped before the hospital bomb. Thousands of civilians in Gaza have died and that's just getting started. The focus should be on an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian aide.

Re: It's easy to screw up on breaking news but you have to admit when you do

#30

Post by fakedang »

mkmk wrote: post #9

A long time ago, I worked for a brand that bought expensive advertisements in the nytimes. The sales team invited me to be a silent attendee of the 'page one meeting', a meeting during which the editors decide which stories will be on the front page of the paper and how they will be presented. By that time, they were also discussing if certain stories warranted a push notification, and how tweets would be presented.…

> the Times is extremely and often somewhat proudly self-conscious of this role. “We set the agenda for the country” is literally the prevailing attitude in the building.

Reminds me of the "We are the media elite" speech in The Newsroom.

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