User:Sj/Ahla

A folly in news and geopolitics
Coverage of the al-Ahla Arab hospital explosion, 10/17-10/24.

Hundreds of outlets and thousands of reporters wasted millions repeating the same small number of claims, which were rarely the most reliable primary or secondary claims known at the time of publication.

Standard fare: hospital history, "several countries have condemned", "what I and P sources have said" "what [US] analysts have said"

10/17 -


 * False claim: that 18:59 wasn't the right time
 * False attrib: social influencer described as digital spokesperson, deleted post as offical claim of intent

10/18 -


 * Reuters - what we know about the explosion. "1,000 people in the hospital that morning" "3,000 people had sought refuge at the hospital" "while it is difficult to independently confirm... bloodshed could be seen in images on social media"'
 * NPR - hundreds of people, including families, were sheltering. Third part (PAX): "clear to me this is not an airstrike. (sm crater, no shockwave) reported death toll would be "extreme high end).
 * Guardian - piecing together. "airstrike looks less likely than a rocket failure causing an explosion and fuel fire"
 * Al Jaz - what do we know. Health Min sais 471, by far the highest death toll of any sngle gaza incident
 * VoA - strikes spark protests, blame passed around
 * Ambassadors from 7 countries, at UN, make official statement [around cancellation of Amman quartet talk] referencing this as a strike, referencing tweet of social media star as deleted Israeli statement. No pushback at the time, or in reporting of statement.

10/19 -


 * BBC: "What video, pictures and other evidence tell us about Al-Ahli hospital blast" . BBC Verify checking image and video and sending a reporter to the scene. "We contacted 20 think tanks, universities and companies with weapons expertise. We spoke to experts at six... inconclusive... 'Not consistent with an Israeli air strike' " Reporter went to the scene, inconclusive. Limited # of verified images. No missile fragments available, small crater, little structural damage. Only mentiones Pal. MoH death toll.
 * CNN - The devastating blast is shrounded in uncertainty.
 * WP trying to keep up; tends to report what is widely repeated in multiple distinct sources. Sources may repeat a single quote, while appearing independent, without sourcing the quote to an individual [to allow deduping], often an anonymous person quoted by an AP reporter.  But the remix of that quote into a slightly non-boilerplate summary gets attributed to the reporter maintaining the live coverage, sometimes literally a feed of short paragraphs, adding apparent independent attribution.  [related: no strong enforcement of sourcing to AP]
 * No walking back of confidently wrong statements by any outlets, just adding new "uncertain" summaries
 * No attempt to rationalize the different death tools (200-500+) even within one newsroom. Just mentioning numbers sourced to who said them [also no 'as of' context, some may be initial estimates recalled by reporter after 24h, though the same source has more recent update]

10/20 -

10/25 -