International editor says he doesn’t ‘feel particularly bad about’ his inaccuracies
BBC’s international editor Jeremy Bowen admits he ‘got it wrong’ in his coverage saying the Gaza Al-Alhi hospital was “flattened” (it was never even bombed), but still said he “doesn’t regret one thing” about his reporting and doesn’t feel particularly bad.
His inaccuracies: blaming Israel for the al-Shifa missile attack, and referring to the hospital as, “flattened.”
I’ve seen people repeating these inaccuracies constantly on Lemmy.
He didn’t blame the attach on Israel. He did say it had been flattened.
His claim of it being flattened caused the BBC to report that it was likely Israel who did it because they were the only ones who had ordinance powerful enough to level a hospital:
In the first story about the hospital on the BBC on Oct 17, correspondent Jon Donnison suggested Israel was behind the blast. Speaking shortly after 8pm on BBC News, he said: “It’s hard to see what else this could be, really, given the size of the explosion, other than an Israeli airstrike or several airstrikes.”
I admit, I was surprised at how many people are indifferent to the truth (at best) regarding this conflict. I know some people in real life who see a lot of antisemitism in modern American society and I used to think they were paranoid but now I’m not sure what else could be motivating this sort of motivated reasoning.
The problem is, that Israel made it relatively easy to fall for these stories by doing similar things for real in the past.
So you’ve got a credible source (BBC) reporting something that’s not really unheard of (i.e. kind of plausible) and that’s happening to align with what you’ve already suspected. Bam, rumor is born.
BTW, you had the same mechanism shortly after the attacks with the “Hamas beheaded babies” stories.
Beheaded babies and the IDF saying “we have lied before but not this time.” really muddies the water.
Do you mean the Al-Alhi Baptist missile or did one happen to Al-shifa now too?
To be clear Bowen did not from my recollection say that the strike was from Israeli. He did, however, incorrectly say that the hispital had been “flattened” based in drone footage he was looking at on screen.
I mean technically yes but it’s one of those things where you’re saying Israel did it without saying it directly. Its really not much better.
No. The programme as a whole said responsibility hadn’t been determined. The news was breaking as Bowen was on air - he didn’t say anything about responsibility
I think I just have to agree to disagree. It’s a simple philosophy problem in my head
“Hospital got flattened”
“Hamas doesn’t have munitions to flatten hospital”
“Israel flattened the hospital”
If you’re reporting about a flattened hospital in Gaza, you’re tactically supporting the idea Israel did it by simply reporting that a hospital got flattened. It also shouldn’t suprise you that’s how many people online ran with it.
The report of a massive explosion outside the hospital would have lead the same people who made assumptions about Israel being responsible to assume that Israel was responsible.
Yeah it would lead neutral observers to beleive Israel flattened a hospital since they are the only ones immediately in the region with the munitions to do so. Both things can be true
But there was a massive explosion outside the hospital. Are you really saying that that shouldn’t have been reported with the caveat ‘we don’t know who is responsible’ because people would have assumed it was Israel ?
No, im saying the reporting the explosion in the parking lot of a hospital as “flattening the hospital” was irresponsible and it’s no wonder it would make people think Israel blew it up by simply stating those things as facts. It was irresponsible to report it this way, especially since there was no evidence to suggest that was the case.
Removed by mod
Maybe lemmy.ml will unban me now that they can see I was right all along.
International editor doesn’t understand how media works.
