Articles about the bombing of the hospital parking lot in Gaza focus either on who was likely at fault or how the journalists and editors relied on the word of Hamas without doing any fact...
Articles about the bombing of the hospital parking lot in Gaza focus either on who was likely at fault or how the journalists and editors relied on the word of Hamas without doing any fact checking.
But the situation may be even worse: it seems like even the original "500+ people dead" claim was not actually said by Hamas. This hypothesis could not be 100% confirmed because none of the news outlets and reporters responded to questions about the source of the claim, but the only source the author of this article found is a Hamas spokesperson claiming 500+ "victims", meaning killed or injured, that was mistranslated into "500+ dead" likely by Al Jazeera English and everybody else just went with it without mentioning their source or bothering to check its validity.
"mistranslated". I'm not so sure about the neutrality of Al Jazeera. Well, no, scratch that. They get their money from the Qatari leadership, the very same who fund and protect Hamas. To consider...
mistranslated
"mistranslated". I'm not so sure about the neutrality of Al Jazeera. Well, no, scratch that. They get their money from the Qatari leadership, the very same who fund and protect Hamas. To consider Al Jazeera properly independent when it touches on Qatari royal interests seems questionable at best.
Though to be fair, I can't disprove a genuine mistranslation. But one way or another, I'm not surprised which outlet originated this mistranslation.
This may be a subtlety of English that I missed as a non-native speaker - I did not mean to imply whether it was by mistake or on purpose and thought that "mistranslated" can mean both. It does...
This may be a subtlety of English that I missed as a non-native speaker - I did not mean to imply whether it was by mistake or on purpose and thought that "mistranslated" can mean both.
It does seem strange that Al Jazeera could not translate Arabic properly, but mistakes happen and it's usually a good idea to assume incompetence and focus on the facts imo.
Oh, I didn't read your statement as being clear either way on mistake or purpose. It seems like a very factual way of reporting what did seem to occur. As far as whether to consider it a mistake...
Oh, I didn't read your statement as being clear either way on mistake or purpose. It seems like a very factual way of reporting what did seem to occur.
As far as whether to consider it a mistake or not, I'm not sure it ultimately matters more than as a small piece of the puzzle. Personally, I don't trust AJ for multiple reasons, this being one of them. If it was just once, sure whatever. I won't go into it beyond that for the sake of Deimos' nerves.
This is one of the best examples of misinformation that I can remember. It's such a huge case too because everyone heard about it. So I bet it will be studied even further in the near future which...
This is one of the best examples of misinformation that I can remember. It's such a huge case too because everyone heard about it. So I bet it will be studied even further in the near future which I will look forward to seeing what getting to the bottom of it looks like
There seems to be a fundamental tension in war coverage between currency and accuracy. The Ukraine invasion, especially in the early days, seemed to have this same problem. Both casualties and...
There seems to be a fundamental tension in war coverage between currency and accuracy.
The Ukraine invasion, especially in the early days, seemed to have this same problem. Both casualties and troop numbers varied by orders of magnitude. This is the fundamental problem of war coverage: both sides have an incentives to skew facts one way or the other, and one has to either wait till (supposedly) objective 3rd party observers confirm claims or run with whatever data is available in the moment.
Israel vs Pakistan and Russia vs Ukraine are public spectacles. The public wants answers fast, and I can see how a platform might consider it better to issue a retraction later rather than waiting till the public has moved on and letting other news sources break the story first.
I agree, and one of the main things I personally took away from this is that there is almost never a need for me to have an immediate opinion on things. In this case waiting just 24 hours gave you...
I agree, and one of the main things I personally took away from this is that there is almost never a need for me to have an immediate opinion on things. In this case waiting just 24 hours gave you better information than accepting what you read hours after it happened. But even waiting a week without having an opinion on it would have changed absolutely nothing. This is probably very obvious for someone who doesn't spend a lot of time online, where you just absorb news without actively looking for them, but I have to consciously remind myself.
Sometimes the media runs with unchecked information but either never goes back to it to correct it or the correction is not visible enough because the story wasn't big enough, but in that case it's likely that the story wasn't that important for me anyway and, again, there is no need for me to have an opinion on it.
It doesn't at all mean I don't care about things, I do quite a bit. But realistically there's almost never any benefit in rushing.
Articles about the bombing of the hospital parking lot in Gaza focus either on who was likely at fault or how the journalists and editors relied on the word of Hamas without doing any fact checking.
But the situation may be even worse: it seems like even the original "500+ people dead" claim was not actually said by Hamas. This hypothesis could not be 100% confirmed because none of the news outlets and reporters responded to questions about the source of the claim, but the only source the author of this article found is a Hamas spokesperson claiming 500+ "victims", meaning killed or injured, that was mistranslated into "500+ dead" likely by Al Jazeera English and everybody else just went with it without mentioning their source or bothering to check its validity.
"mistranslated". I'm not so sure about the neutrality of Al Jazeera. Well, no, scratch that. They get their money from the Qatari leadership, the very same who fund and protect Hamas. To consider Al Jazeera properly independent when it touches on Qatari royal interests seems questionable at best.
Though to be fair, I can't disprove a genuine mistranslation. But one way or another, I'm not surprised which outlet originated this mistranslation.
This may be a subtlety of English that I missed as a non-native speaker - I did not mean to imply whether it was by mistake or on purpose and thought that "mistranslated" can mean both.
It does seem strange that Al Jazeera could not translate Arabic properly, but mistakes happen and it's usually a good idea to assume incompetence and focus on the facts imo.
Oh, I didn't read your statement as being clear either way on mistake or purpose. It seems like a very factual way of reporting what did seem to occur.
As far as whether to consider it a mistake or not, I'm not sure it ultimately matters more than as a small piece of the puzzle. Personally, I don't trust AJ for multiple reasons, this being one of them. If it was just once, sure whatever. I won't go into it beyond that for the sake of Deimos' nerves.
This is one of the best examples of misinformation that I can remember. It's such a huge case too because everyone heard about it. So I bet it will be studied even further in the near future which I will look forward to seeing what getting to the bottom of it looks like
There seems to be a fundamental tension in war coverage between currency and accuracy.
The Ukraine invasion, especially in the early days, seemed to have this same problem. Both casualties and troop numbers varied by orders of magnitude. This is the fundamental problem of war coverage: both sides have an incentives to skew facts one way or the other, and one has to either wait till (supposedly) objective 3rd party observers confirm claims or run with whatever data is available in the moment.
Israel vs Pakistan and Russia vs Ukraine are public spectacles. The public wants answers fast, and I can see how a platform might consider it better to issue a retraction later rather than waiting till the public has moved on and letting other news sources break the story first.
I agree, and one of the main things I personally took away from this is that there is almost never a need for me to have an immediate opinion on things. In this case waiting just 24 hours gave you better information than accepting what you read hours after it happened. But even waiting a week without having an opinion on it would have changed absolutely nothing. This is probably very obvious for someone who doesn't spend a lot of time online, where you just absorb news without actively looking for them, but I have to consciously remind myself.
Sometimes the media runs with unchecked information but either never goes back to it to correct it or the correction is not visible enough because the story wasn't big enough, but in that case it's likely that the story wasn't that important for me anyway and, again, there is no need for me to have an opinion on it.
It doesn't at all mean I don't care about things, I do quite a bit. But realistically there's almost never any benefit in rushing.