Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

natesilver.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 258 posts

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

#111

Post by hersko »

bombcar wrote: post #90
mcphage wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, maybe it was the same. And maybe it wasn't. I'm don't know how doctors at a hospital would be able to determine that. I'm pretty sure it's not one of the things they're taught in medical school.

And if you're in a zone where munitions are landing all around you, and almost all of them are from a certain source, you're going to assume the next one is from the same source.

Many Hamas rockets fall in Gaza killing Palestinians. There's something like a 30% failure rate.

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

#112

Post by jraby3 »

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…

A news organization like The NY Times is absolutely expected to verify its facts before reporting. This isn’t a random blog or buzz feed.

At least that used to be the standard. At this point they’re just like everyone else, after clicks no matter how much damage they do.

Their was a time not too long ago when they had some journalistic integrity.

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

#113

Post by lawgimenez »

baryphonic wrote: post #107
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 visual evidence is what makes me think Palestinian militants (accidentally) caused the explosion. First, live footage from Al Jazeera at the time showed rockets firing from a location in Gaza toward Israel. One rocket appeared to malfunction in mid-air and within a few seconds, an explosion happened on the ground approximately where the hospital is. The lean-too shape of the hospital roof can even be seen in the…

You forgot the leaked intercepted call from a Hamas terrorist claiming that one of the rockets fell on the hospital.

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

#114

Post by jmyeet »

The media coverage in general has been atrocious of this issue. In this case, however, the original headline seemed pretty reasonable. Why?

1. Israel had struck the hospital 3 days earlier [1];

2. Israel ordered an evacuation of these hospitals becamse of impending military action [2];

3. The only direct video evidence showed a large explosion that was inconsistent with a misfire or any explosive capability by any group in Gaza. This occurred at night. At day, it was shown that was no large crater consistent with a high-yield explosion (eg as delivered by JDAM) and the explosion occurred in a car park, not the hospital itself. There are now several theories but an Israeli airstrike hasn't been ruled out; and

4. Israel and the IDF lie all the time. In this war we've had videos posted by official Israeli and IDF channels only to be deleted. Same with statements. We saw the same thing with the assassination by Israeli snipers of Palestinian journalist and American citizen Shireen Abu-Akleh [3]. Israel initially attempted to blame this on stray fire from militants but these lies were quickly debunked.

Traditional media bends over backwards here. I mean look at headlines like "Reuters journalist killed in Lebanon in missile fire from direction of Israel" [4].

We saw this in the Hamas attack too with unsubstantiated stories about "beheaded babies" [5], a story that the President repeated, claiming to see evidence of this but then having to walk it back [6].

I don't know the answer to this but here's my question: does Nate Silver have this same level of skepticism for anything Israel or the IDF says? I hope so.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital#Rocket_s...

[2]: https://www.who.int/news/item/14-10-2023-evacuation-orders-b...

[3]: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/5/22/lies-investigat...

[4]: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/reuters-videograph...

[5]: https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/12/middleeast/israel-hamas-behea...

[6]: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/12/white-house-walks-...

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

#115

Post by seo-speedwagon »

names_are_hard wrote: post #59
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.

As soon as the story broke, it was clear to me that whoever did it, it was an accident. So in that sense, it doesn't really matter. It's an unfortunate casualty of war, in which innocent people suffer even when it's not intended. One thing that I respect about the initial Israeli response was that they weren't quick to assign blame. In a press conference soon after the event, the military spokesperson said that they…

> As soon as the story broke, it was clear to me that whoever did it, it was an accident. So in that sense, it doesn't really matter. It's an unfortunate casualty of war, in which innocent people suffer even when it's not intended.

What’s this based on? Vibes? People are upset about this because it, in fact, does matter. Intentionally destroying a hospital is an atrocity; in the context of a war, it’s a war crime.

This kind of false, lofty even-handedness doesn’t really work when the matter in dispute is human rights violations.

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

#116

Post by kahirsch »

bnralt wrote: post #27

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…

> 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.

The article does mention the earlier story and links to it in the paragraph:

> The existence of the meeting has been public since shortly after it happened in December 2018. The New York Times reported shortly after the meeting took place that Ms. Warren had sought it “as a courtesy,” and that neither party had tried to gain the other’s support or discourage the other from running. But the two senators were the only people in the room, and all reports of what was said had been secondhand.

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

#117

Post by perihelions »

NYT had a near-identical fact pattern a few weeks ago. The military of Ukraine accidentally bombed its own city, killing 17 people. NYT falsely and without evidence attributed it to the Russian military—just like in Silver's example with the Gaza hospital. This is a recurring issue, and IMHO suggests a systemic problem with their reporting, not limited to one topic or bureau.

Original, conclusory title captured by a Reddit bot: "Russian Missile Strike Leaves Scene of Carnage at Market in Ukraine"

https://old.reddit.com/r/NYTauto/comments/16c4o2j/world_russ...

Updated correction: "Evidence Suggests Ukrainian Missile Caused Market Tragedy"

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/18/world/europe/ukraine-miss...

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

#118

Post by [deleted] »

jwond wrote: post #43
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.

[deleted]

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

#120

Post by seo-speedwagon »

baryphonic wrote: post #107
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 visual evidence is what makes me think Palestinian militants (accidentally) caused the explosion. First, live footage from Al Jazeera at the time showed rockets firing from a location in Gaza toward Israel. One rocket appeared to malfunction in mid-air and within a few seconds, an explosion happened on the ground approximately where the hospital is. The lean-too shape of the hospital roof can even be seen in the…

And here’s an analysis disputing many of those claims

https://www.channel4.com/news/who-was-behind-the-gaza-hospit...

Post reply on HN