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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

#41

Post by threeseed »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #34
threeseed wrote: post #22

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 verif…

> News organisations can't be expected to verify every claim. I thought this was the defining characteristic, that set them apart from gossipmongers and fools. Yes, I not only can expect that, I think I should.

You should expect that. For non-breaking news.

But when you are asking a journalist to report on an event minutes to hours after it happened then obviously they will have limited time to validate a claim. Especially in a war-zone where their ability to operate is limited.

It's not really possible to be fast and thorough at the same time.

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

#42

Post by mkmk »

threeseed wrote: post #33
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.…

> At least there, I find it a bit easier to make sense of who is misleading me Pretty funny that this comment comes hours after New York Times lost their verification badge on X. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/10/19/x-twitt...

Ha! That's too perfect.

Though I should add that I find twitter to be most helpful when you follow individuals, rather than company accounts.

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

#43

Post by jwond »

threeseed wrote: post #22

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 verif…

They could still report breaking news and unverified claims, but they should at least do so in a slightly more responsible way, e.g. by limiting the headline to only what is actually verified at that time. If they want to include unverified claims in the body of the article, at least there they have more space to make it more explicitly clear what is and is not verified.

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

#44

Post by Pxtl »

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.

The evidence from reputable OSINT orgs like Bellingcat is pretty-much showing evidence that this was an accident on the part of Palistinian fighters.

There are multiple videos showing a volley of rockets were launched from within Gaza (not from Bellingcat, but other OSINT groups -- Bellingcat not ready to make a final conclusion here). One of the rockets appeared to fail while it was rising - it swerved wildly and then went dark. Then the explosion happened very nearby. Of course, there's a chance the videos are fake in some way, but that's what we've seen so far.

edit: Al Jazeera believes that the rocket did not fail, but was destroyed by Iron Dome defenses, and still believes that the explosion is an Israeli airstrike. They haven't really provided any evidence of the latter, only the former. Personally I'm thinking it's possible that the explosion in the courtyard was still caused by this event even if AJ is correct that Iron Dome shot the missile down. No other major news source seems to be following up on the "iron dome" angle.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/19/what-hit-ahli-hosp...

Bellingcat has photos of the impact crater - it's small, much too small for Israeli airstrike weapons.

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2023/10/18/identifying-possi...

So what it sounds like is that there was an encampment of Palestinians who were taking refuge in the parking-lot/courtyard of this hospital, the rocket failed, and some or all of its explosives and fuel fell into this courtyard and killed a large number of people.

And yes, this is fundamentally the expected outcome of waging a war in an area the size of Montreal or Pittsburgh with even higher population density. Especially since the nearest major targets are north of Gaza, and Gaza's densest area is the northern-half of the strip.

These are weapons maintained and often built in the blockaded open-air prison of Gaza, they're not exactly Raytheon products -- a certain number of failures is to be expected and failures with offensive rockets are going to be incredibly dangerous to bystanders. I wouldn't be surprised if those rockets have killed more of their own people than Israelis.

I oppose the occupation and oppression of the Palestinians, but the facts are the facts.

edit2: My opinion is that this was almost certainly an accident. Either a Palistinian rocket failed, or possibly if AJ is telling the truth the Iron Dome accidentally caused the explosion (either directly or indirectly) when attempting to shoot down the rocket volley.

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

#45

Post by JumpCrisscross »

mattmaroon wrote: post #26
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> not sure what will change in a few more days

One, the people who think before speaking will start talking. Two, intelligence will start being released.

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

#46

Post by mupuff1234 »

losvedir wrote: post #31
numlocked wrote: post #10

I don’t have a dog in the fight and have been a long time NYT subscriber but I concur with Nate on this one. The NYT coverage here has become even worse in the last few hours. It’s truly bizarre. Here is their latest: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/20/briefing/gaza-hospital.ht... The headline is: Gaza and the Trudeau Problem It begins with an inexplicable few paragraphs about Canada and India before taking a sharp l…

I try to limit my intake of news, and so most of the story I only hear from my Tangle subscription[0] which has had a pretty even take on it. I've been impressed with them, so far, but of course everyone has biases and you have to take everything with a grain of salt, etc, etc. Anyway, I agree that "Hamas said so" is one side, and it's weak. And on the other side you have the still-standing hospital. You also have Bi…

> The video had the wrong timestamps

There was live stream from Al-Jazeera showing the failed rocket at the correct timestamp.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/18/al-ahli-arab-h...

> and the voice recordings were alleged to be faked

By who? The article just leads to a tweet with no citations from any experts.

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

#47

Post by YouWhy »

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…

The IDF is a negligible source when it comes to reporting on Israeli civilian casualties.

The tally of multiple hundreds of civilians murdered is easily verifiable - for about 400 civilians, names have been published [1].

One reason for the considerable delay in victim identification has been the burnt and fragmentary state of recovered human remains. This has been reported by dozens of forensic workers, including Dr. Chen Kugel, head of Israel's Institute for Forensic Medicine. [2]

A piece by a social worker published a day ago at Haaretz casually mentions a meat truck filled with children's bodies at the triage site, in particular mentioning the remains of a fetus. [3]

[1] https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/2023-10-12/ty-article-magazin...

[2] https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel-at-war/1697531028-they...

[3] https://www.haaretz.co.il/opinions/2023-10-19/ty-article-opi...

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

#48

Post by cornercasechase »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #39
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 a well know IDF playbook, they are not a credible source. Question: It is also a well-known Hamas playbook, they are also not a credible source, so why blindly take _either_ at face value? Why blindly take anything at face value without verifying facts? "So-and-so says" isn't news, it's gossipmongering.

Why would you question that this one particular building out of the thousands that Israel has and is bombing, wasn’t also bombed by Israel?

Aside, the doctors at the hospital said Israel bombed them, they are not Hamas.

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

#49

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Pxtl wrote: post #44
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.

The evidence from reputable OSINT orgs like Bellingcat is pretty-much showing evidence that this was an accident on the part of Palistinian fighters. There are multiple videos showing a volley of rockets were launched from within Gaza (not from Bellingcat, but other OSINT groups -- Bellingcat not ready to make a final conclusion here). One of the rockets appeared to fail while it was rising - it swerved wildly and th…

> evidence from reputable OSINT orgs like Bellingcat

Do you have a link to their findings?

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

#50

Post by bryanlarsen »

numlocked wrote: post #10

I don’t have a dog in the fight and have been a long time NYT subscriber but I concur with Nate on this one. The NYT coverage here has become even worse in the last few hours. It’s truly bizarre. Here is their latest: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/20/briefing/gaza-hospital.ht... The headline is: Gaza and the Trudeau Problem It begins with an inexplicable few paragraphs about Canada and India before taking a sharp l…

Everybody reading that NYT article is going to come away with the conclusion that PIJ fired the rocket.

The way it was written makes that conclusion far more persusasive than any article less "fair" to Hamas or the PIJ.

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