The legacy news organizations are facing intense backlash due to their hasty promotion of Hamas’ side of the story. As the Israel-Hamas war continued, it became not only a physical conflict but also a battle of narratives. Caught in the middle of this information war are major legacy news organizations, which received information from Hamas-controlled Gaza without much skepticism. This led them to initially favor Hamas after a deadly hospital explosion. Hamas accused the Israeli military of bombing the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, claiming that 500 people were killed. Israeli officials, however, refuted these claims and blamed a failed rocket attack by Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group fighting alongside Hamas, for the explosion. The Pentagon’s intelligence assessment supported this, estimating the death toll to be closer to 50.
Despite the conflicting accounts, several news organizations, such as BBC, The New York Times, and CNN, quickly amplified Hamas’ side of the story. This fueled pro-Palestinian demonstrations worldwide and drew criticism. The BBC faced particularly harsh backlash, with accusations that its coverage resembled blood libel. The New York Times also faced social media humiliation when Elon Musk removed its golden verification badge on Twitter, likely due to its handling of the hospital explosion story. The Times initially ran a headline suggesting that Israel was responsible for the deaths, accompanied by a misleading photo of a destroyed building from a different location. The headline was later changed multiple times, but the Times did not issue a formal correction, quietly altering the original article’s wording instead. This behavior, dubbed “stealth editing,” was criticized by people across the political spectrum.
CNN also faced scrutiny when an interview with an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson turned confrontational. The spokesperson accused CNN of not wanting to see the evidence proving Israel’s innocence in the hospital tragedy, suggesting that the network only wanted a story. The anchor defended CNN’s commitment to seeking the truth but faced pushback from the IDF spokesperson. The interview was cut short and went into a break.