Media Struggles to Sort Fact From Fiction in Israel-Gaza War as Real-Time News Drives Deadly Results

The inevitable fog of war has descended on the Israel-Hamas conflict, but faster and with more deadly consequences than in the past. And news media, under intense pressure to push out breaking news as quickly as possible, is grappling with contradictory information from the war zone, and accusations of misinformation from critics.

The deadly explosion at Al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza on Tuesday night quickly provided a case study in how real-time reporting from unverified sources can lead to serious consequences. Hamas claimed that an Israeli air strike on the hospital led to the loss of 500 lives, and news organizations prematurely pointed the finger at Israel as the source of the explosion.

The Hamas claim generated headlines in The New York Times and other outlets, quickly followed by Israel’s denial of responsibility, which said that its authorities believed a misfired rocket from Islamic Jihad, which fights alongside Hamas, was the source.

The cause of the explosion is still not known for certain, but U.S. intelligence agencies say evidence they’ve assessed – civilian videos, satellite imagery, missiles tracked by infrared sensors among other elements – indicates Israel almost certainly wasn’t responsible. And that Israel’s contention of an errant missile from inside Gaza seems likely.

As for the number of casualties, on Thursday, U.S. intelligence assessed that the death toll is likely somewhere between 100 and 300. It also became clear that the hospital itself was mostly intact, and that the explosion and subsequent deaths occurred in its parking lot where Gazans had taken refuge.

But the damage was already done. Those early reports, based on incomplete or false information, fueled widespread condemnation of Israel online and across the world, and even affected international diplomacy.

Among those rushing to condemn Israel for the bombing was U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who said in a post on X (which has still not been deleted), “Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that.”

And less than 24 hours before President Joe Biden was supposed to meet with officials from Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, the four-way summit was canceled.

Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protests broke out across the Arab world, including demonstrations in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Tunisia, Turkey, and more. Protests also broke out in the West Bank, where tension has been elevated since the start of the conflict.

Media reporter Brian Stelter joined NewsNation on Wednesday, telling Dan Abrams that the press has “no defense here.”

“This was an atrocious series of mistakes by many different major newsrooms,” Stelter said. “Unfortunately, I don’t think there has been enough follow-up or accountability to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Stelter added that “when information is lowest, interest is highest…it was even worse because when the stakes are highest, it seems that standards were the lowest and it should be the opposite.”

The New York Times did not respond to a request for comment.

But even on Thursday, a day after the White House and U.S. intelligence organizations said that the blast had likely come from a Palestinian misfired missile, many outlets including NPR and the Los Angeles Times continued to present the explosion as a “he said/she said” case of responsibility, suggesting it could as easily be Israel as Palestinian forces at fault.

Congressman Ted Lieu (D-Ca) challenged the Los Angeles Times over a headline which read: “Rage spreads over Gaza hospital blast amid dueling narratives from Israel and Hamas.”

“The Times simply accepts what terrorist organization Hamas said even though it’s false,” Lieu wrote. “This both sides journalism is factually wrong.”

In a statement to TheWrap, LA Times spokeswoman Hillary Manning said: “We take any criticism of our coverage, including headlines, seriously and regularly review coverage based on reader feedback. When we discover a factual error or additional information, either through internal review or when it is brought to our attention, we have a process for issuing corrections and updates.”

She added: “We do not see a need to respond regarding the tweet. “

CNN, which also initially ran with the statement from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry claiming the death toll was around 500, declined to comment. However, an individual with knowledge of the network’s thinking said that covering a war “is an exceptionally challenging and difficult breaking news story.”

The individual said all headlines and banners about the hospital explosion were clearly attributed to the source of information so audiences understood where the information was coming from. “As more information became available, the attribution was broadened and the story updated, which is always the case in any breaking news story,” the individual said.

Other outlets were not as reserved in their reporting. While the Israeli military said it was investigating the explosion at the site of the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital on Tuesday night, BBC correspondent Jon Donnison told viewers, “It’s hard to see what else this could be really given the size of the explosion other than an Israeli air strike or several air strikes.”

Shortly after, IDF Spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus joined the BBC live and lambasted the network for Donnison’s on-air comments. “What was that based on?” Conricus questioned.

Conricus said he was “appalled by the double standards in reporting” in a post of the interview on X.

“I have no issue with being held accountable, but only wish our enemies are held to the same scrutiny,” Conricus wrote.

As a result, the BBC received significant backlash but initially backed their report, saying on Wednesday that the network “rejects these claims about our coverage; anyone watching, listening to or reading it can see we have set out both sides’ competing claims about the attack, clearly showing who is saying them, and what we do or don’t know.”

Since then, however, the BBC has changed its approach, and noted that it was “wrong to speculate” on who should take responsibility for the blast. “This doesn’t represent the entirety of the BBC’s output,” the network said.

TheWrap reached out to multiple media experts who declined to engage on this issue, citing a lack of familiarity with reporting issues in the Mideast.

Regardless of the news organizations’ updated headlines and articles, the narrative that an Israeli airstrike hit the hospital continues to reverberate.

“There is no doubt that this was a tragedy at the hospital but there was this rush to judgment based on a one-sided story from whatever the opposite of a reliable source is,” Stelter concluded.

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