When the Gaza hospital story first appeared, mainstream media outlets reported it in the same way as did the New York Times, which ran a front-page headline reading: “Israeli Strike Kills Hundreds in Hospital, Palestinians Say.”
The average reader of the New York Times reads the paper because of the immense reputation it has built up over the years as “the paper of record.” Its reporters were renowned for pursuing the story wherever it might go. It would relentlessly seek confirmation of claims of involved parties, so as never to be manipulated into being a mouthpiece for propaganda.
One might make a strong case that the reputation was not earned. It touted Walter Duranty for a Pulitzer even as Duranty shilled for Stalin and dismissed as fantastic nonsense Malcolm Muggeridge’s accurate reporting of Stalin’s decimation of Ukraine through the deliberate starvation of millions. Couple that with its consignment of the emerging stories of the Holocaust to far back in the paper, indicating how unimportant it gauged perhaps the greatest of crimes in history, and one could reasonably argue the Times failed miserably on two of the most important stories of the century.
Yet the fact remains that it was widely considered the epitome of good journalism for many years, and those who read it most likely continue so to consider it.
Such a reader, then, seeing this headline, is likely to infer that if the Times is running with this as its big headline story of the day on a story that has tremendous import on millions of lives, it is because its reporters have exercised due diligence, checked those sources out, and find them unimpeachable. Surely the paper of record would not run a provocative story as its front-page lead story on the mere say-so of an interested party without verification and on the basis of reputation.
And yet, the Times began to change the headline significantly, though without apology, and still giving it as the only explanation it ventured about the incident – “At Least 500 Dead in Strike on Gaza Hospital, Palestinians Say.” The charge is repeated that there is a strike, and it is still clearly implicit that — well, who else would strike except you-know-who?
As went the Times, so went most of the mainstream media — first the untruth given as worthy of the front-page, with no qualification, then a gradual walk back without apology. It has become clearer and clearer, through multiple sources including video from Al Jazeera and analyses by independent forensic experts, that the explosion in question was not from Israel but from an errant Palestinian rocket aimed at civilians in Israel that fell far short and killed civilians in Gaza. It also is now evident that there is little structural damage to the hospital and that the rocket fell in the hospital’s parking lot. It also seems evident at this point that the number of 500 dead was concocted to dramatize the false story of a deliberate hit on the hospital and is highly unlikely to have been the result of this parking lot explosion.
But the lie was let out and repeated around the world, and predicably there are violent demonstrations all over, which threaten further violence against the Jews who have been blood-libeled. So certainly, these respected news organizations that broadcast this false and provocative story all over the world have recognized their role in incitement of further violent hatred.
Uhh, no. Suddenly, these new journalists, who have justified their unobjective engagement in American politics with the plea that moral urgency takes precedence over the outdated and low-level value of objectivity — suddenly these people retreat into a self-serving pseudo-objectivity.
Typical is this from NBC News today:
The analysis of the experts and U.S. officials is likely to do little to stanch the anger felt across the Arab world, which gives credence to the version of events put forward by Palestinian officials and Hamas: that Israel hit the hospital and killed hundreds of civilians in a deliberate act.
No acknowledgement that the evidence is entirely against that interpretation; no acknowledgement that NBC, like the Times, spread that false interpretation world-wide. It tossed Hamas gasoline on a raging fire and then stepped back to note what had happened as if it had done nothing.
Even viler is a paragraph further down:
Verification of who is responsible for the hospital explosion is particularly difficult because it’s not possible for outside experts to enter Gaza, which is under blockade and surrounded by Israeli forces.
The cat was let out of the bag by reporters in Gaza the last time war broke out — Hamas does not allow independent investigations. They could only see what they were shown, and they were warned that there would be severe consequences if their stories contradicted the Hamas line.
Not a word of that here. NBC. Showing contempt for its viewers and readers, it expects them to forget all that and accept that the only reason verification is impossible is because of Israeli “blockade.” Hmmm. Do their reporters in Ukraine expect passage through the battle lines to go over to the Russian side and report? Is that a blockade? And no mention of the well-documented total censorship of Hamas.
The moral vacuum at the center of the culture the mainstream media represents is an enduring shame on our culture. It is a new low. The medieval lies about Jews killing babies to use their blood to make matzah result in torture and murder of Jews across Europe. Pray, work hard, and raise your voice courageously against the cynical nihilism that would define our awareness. This is not who we are. It is not our American voice.