Posted on 10/20/2023 2:24:06 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Perhaps the Walter Cronkite Awards ought to have slightly higher standards?
Ben Collins is a reporter for NBC News who specializes in coverage of disinformation and extremism, particularly on social media. His work has earned him many plaudits, including a 2023 Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Television Political Journalism.
Collins is treated as an expert in the burgeoning field of countering the spread of misinformation. Yet his error rate is noteworthy.
Take the Gaza hospital explosion, for example. On Tuesday, reports surfaced that the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza had come under attack, resulting in as many as 500 deaths. The New York Times ran with "Israeli Strikes Kill Hundreds in Hospital, Palestinians Say." Underneath this headline was an image of an obliterated building—readers who squinted would have noticed that this was not the hospital, but a completely different target.
The Times' only source for information about the explosion was the Gaza Health Ministry; mainstream reporting noted that Palestinian authorities laid the blame squarely on an Israeli airstrike. Subsequent intelligence reports from both Israel and the U.S. provide credible evidence that the hospital was most probably struck by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group.
Did Collins soberly wait for these facts to come in? Nope. The award-winning disinformation expert helped circulate the inaccurate claims of the Palestinian authorities. When other voices on social media recommended caution, Collins chimed in to assert that any delay in reporting the horrific casualty numbers represented a profound moral failing. (Casualty estimates have yet to be confirmed.)
In theory, the confusion surrounding the hospital explosion is a great topic for a self-described disinformation reporter. Many left-leaning writers and political figures recklessly endorsed the Palestinian view that Israel had bombed the hospital. Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D–Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D–Minn.) both made statements blaming Israel and did not swiftly delete them after what really happened became clearer. Omar eventually acknowledged the new information, but Tlaib again blamed Israel for the explosion during a speech at a pro-Palestine rally outside the U.S. Capitol. Is this not something worthy of coverage by Collins and company?
Keep in mind that Collins represents the journalistic side of a multi-faceted effort to monitor and eliminate purportedly wrong ideas. Disinformation tracking has become an industry unto itself, and aspects of the industry enjoy government funding: A disinformation watchdog that called on advertisers to divest from various non-liberal news sources—including Reason—received funding from the U.S. State Department.
Disinformation reporters often seem interested in sparring only with contrarian people and in defense of mainstream narratives: Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, Elon Musk, and others. Collins, for instance, downplayed the New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story and denied that there was any effort to censor the lab leak theory of COVID-19's origins, even in the wake of ceaseless revelations that various government agencies pressured social media companies to de-platform contrarian speech about precisely these topics.
Collins' reporting often contains basic errors that suggest he doesn't particularly understand the right-wing forces he's denouncing. His most recent article alleges that Musk's plans for Twitter were shaped by a far-right former Trump administration staffer, even though it's fairly clear the staffer wasn't actually telling Musk what to do, but rather warning about what would happen to Musk if he offended "the regime." If that sounds conspiratorial, try to follow this clip of Collins and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow elucidating the Musk plan. It's impossible to describe, so please watch:
What?
If you're going to paint broad swaths of opinion that depart from mainstream orthodoxy as paranoid and conspiratorial, you should take great pains to avoid echoing paranoia and conspiracy. You should also beware of elementary errors—like immediately taking a terrorist group's assertions at face value—and call out others who make them.
Perhaps the Walter Cronkite Awards ought to have slightly higher standards?
Collins is not the only journalist who gets things wrong, of course. But there's something extra galling about journalistic errors when they are perpetrated by someone who holds himself out as especially talented at identifying lies. That's the real problem with the army of self-appointed fact-checkers and misinformation watchdogs who police social media with particular focus on alternative content creators—they're frequently no less wrong than anyone else.
Earlier this week, Reuters reported that U.S. lawmakers were "seeking answers" from Meta, X, Google, and TikTok about the spread of false information on those platforms.
"Deceptive content has ricocheted across social media sites since the conflict began, sometimes receiving millions of views," wrote Sen. Michael Bennet (D–Colo.) in a letter to the companies.
This framing totally ignores the fact that some of the most pernicious misstatements about the situation in Gaza were peddled by mainstream journalistic institutions like The New York Times. On social media, people were able to challenge prevailing narratives that the expert class had blindly accepted. For instance, Community Notes—the crowd-sourced, Wikipedia-style fact-checking system on X—is often able to provide useful context about claims that appear on that platform.
Disinformation reporters, on the other hand, are extremely partisan and prone to error. Let's stop pretending that they have some special, magical power to separate the truth from lies.
Why should he correct false Israeli information, that’s not his “TEAM”.
Quit saying its error. It was a purposeful error. No mistake. They knew it was false.
Lol. Walter Cronkite Award. LOLOL. The same Cronkite who purposefully, knowingly lied to America about the Tet Offensive of 1968? That Cronkite?
What a joke.
Misinformation and Disinformation are war terms. Militaries use these tactics to deceive the enemy. They are inappropriately used in furtherance of domestic political advantage, indicating that politicians and the media consider themselves at war with the public.
In a free society of free people, all ideas are open for debate at all times. On social media and online, there is no need for regulations at all - the people on the platforms will regulate themselves by free and open debate. On Twitter/X, they seem to have recently created a system whereby if enough users “flag” a post as wrong information, it will automatically cause the post to have a warning that the content is disputed by a large number of users. That’s the best solution so far to hold bad ideas under the light of day in a free society.
The mass media and tech companies cannot be trusted any more than politicians or the tentacles of government. They have declared themselves in an information war with the people through the use of these terms in public debate.
They covered their backsides by putting in the article “Palestinian sources say”. But the headline and the picture deliver the most impact to the casual reader.
Journalistic ethics is out the window. Partly or even largely due to open partisanship, and partly due to money. They want the clicks and the eyeballs. So, put an inflammatory headline and an unrelated picture and then fudge the actual story in the 2nd or 3rd paragraph.
Whether they knew it was false or not, they had every reason to be skeptical about it... just like they had every reason to be skeptical about the Trump Russia collusion nonsense. It amazes me that the same people who believe that the CIA was involved in the assassination of Kennedy, that the CIA and DOD was involved in drug/weapons running over Iran/Contra etc et al act insulted when you try to them that “government sources” cannot be per se trusted as reliable. And when someone who does come forward who is on surface non-partisan and with no obvious grudge, like a mid-level bureaucratic whistleblower, comes out against someone on their side - they ignore that and go to some ex-CIA or ex-FBI honcho for commentary.
I’d piss on Cronkite’s grave if I was in the vicinity.I’ll still have enough for Jane Fonda.
A graduate of the “Baghdad Bob” School of Journalism?
there were “reporters” all over Gaza, yet the following shows nothing to verify anything. some of the most ridiculous bits from the Beeb Team:
BBC I-Verify: Gaza hospital: What video, pictures and other evidence tell us about Al-Ahli hospital blast
Published 1 day ago
By Paul Brown, Joshua Cheetham, Sean Seddon and Daniele Palumbo
We contacted 20 think tanks, universities and companies with weapons expertise. Nine of them are yet to respond, five would not comment, but we spoke to experts at the remaining six...
Based on available evidence, it appears the explosion happened in a courtyard which is part of the hospital site. Images of the ground after the blast do not show significant damage to surrounding hospital buildings. What the images do show are scorch marks and burnt-out cars...
The BBC has viewed extremely graphic images of victims and survivors at the explosion site, which show catastrophic injuries...
Canon Richard Sewell, the dean of St George’s College in Jerusalem, told the BBC that about 1,000 displaced people were sheltering in the courtyard when it was hit, and about 600 patients and staff were inside the building...
PIC: Satellite image of Al Ahli hospital after blast
VIDEO: 52secs: BBC reporter Rushdi Abualouf at the scene of Gaza hospital blast: “People are still collecting body parts”
(FINAL PARAS) There appeared to be an inconsistency in the Israeli briefing regarding where the rocket they believed caused the blast was fired from.
The spokesman said it had been fired from a nearby cemetery - and there is a cemetery next to the hospital. But a map displayed by the spokesman showed a launch site further away. We have not been able to locate a cemetery there.
Additional reporting by: The Visual Journalism team, Tom Spencer, Shayan Sardarizadeh, Jake Horton, Emma Pengelly and Jamie Ryan
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67144061
not praising Mudoch’s Sun newspaper either, but worth noting:
18 Oct: UK Sun: BBC BLAST BBC accused of putting lives at risk after rushing to blame Israel for hospital blast that ‘killed 500’ as PM takes jab
by Robin Perrie, Noa Hoffman
THE BBC was slammed by Foreign Secretary James Cleverly today for putting lives at risk after rushing to blame Israel for a tragic hospital blast in Gaza WITHOUT verifying the facts.
It came as Rishi Sunak used PMQs to put the broadcaster on notice and remind its chiefs: “The words we say have impact”...
In a live broadcast last night, BBC journalist Jon Donnison said in his piece to camera: “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.
“When we have seen rockets being fired out of Gaza we never see explosions of that scale.
“We might see half a dozen, maybe a few more, people being killed in such rocket attacks but we have never seen anything on the scale of the sort of explosion on the video I was watching earlier which is still to be verified.”
The broadcaster’s fact-checking department, BBC Verify, later reported that at least one expert had suggested it was not an airstrike.
Daniel Sugarman, Director of Public Affairs at the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said: “Of all the misreporting last night, I think this from the BBC is perhaps the most egregious.
“Utterly dire.”
Rear Admiral Dr Chris Parry branded the Beeb “useless and irresponsible”.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/politics/24442596/bbc-accused-of-putting-lives-at-risk/
The way I heard it, Thurnberg had her Hamas friend take out the fossil fuel vehicles in the parking lot to save da planet. Might need to get Snipes to Fart Check it.
Fart check? Wouldn’t want that job! ;)
Ground launched missile or rocket . . .
At 0:01 into 0:16 showing the explosion:
In that video (link above), look for a structure in the distance; a round tower rising above a rectangular building.
That, will match (near enough) the structure in the distance with a round tower rising above a rectangular building:
At 0:08:
https://t.me/beholdisraelchannel/19889
That 2nd video, showing the path of the HAMAS rocket flight.
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