New York Times Claims the Hamas Hospital Disinformation Isn't Their Fault, and Also, Won't Even Admit It Was Disinformation.

See update at post's end.

I repeat, once again, that the leftwing propaganda media claims that you should be censored for "disinformation," and they should not be, because on the rare (LOL) occasions they report lies, they spring into action to correct the lies and admit their errors.

They have in fact corrected zero lies and admitted zero errors, which makes this claim, itself, more disinformation.

Even CNN now admits the munition that struck the hospital -- I mean, the hospital parking lot -- was a Palestinian rocket.

The New York Times won't admit that yet. They're still trying to rescue their earlier disinformation. The most the Times will say is that Hamas has "not made the case" that it was an Israeli munition.

At Powerline, the New York Times' descent into the ignominy of a heroin junkie-whore of lies and propaganda continues.

Today the Times not only raises doubts about the veracity of its initial story, but attributes it to "the Hamas-run Gazan health ministry" (rather than "Gazan officials" or "the Gazan health ministry").

...

The Times comes to no definitive conclusion today. This is utterly abject: "Without examining the munition that hit the parking lot, it may be impossible to draw a definitive conclusion about who fired it."

It's like the fraudulent Rathergate documents whose authenticity was assessed in the appendix of the Thornburgh-Boccardi report commissioned by CBS: There might be a typewriter out there somewhere that incorporated the Times New Roman typeface even though it was never licensed to typewriters. It's possible! (No, it's not.)

From the Times:

Within an hour of the blast on Tuesday night, the Hamas-run Gazan health ministry accused Israel of attacking the Ahli Arab hospital, a medical center in Gaza City where scores of families had been sheltering. The allegation was soon denied by Israel but quickly accepted and amplified by Arab leaders across the Middle East, setting off unrest throughout the region. The claim was widely cited by international news outlets, including The New York Times, before Israel issued its denial.

You did more than "cite" the claim. You covered up the fact that this claim came from Hamas -- it's nice that you now admit the claim came from the "Hamas-run Gazan health ministry," but earlier you claimed it came from "health authorities." Which might mean UNESCO.

And your stories did not suggest that you were reporting "claims," but verified facts. There was not an iota of sketpicism in your "reportage," nor any emphasis on the fact that these were claims.

But in the days since, as new evidence contradicting the Hamas claim has emerged, the Gazan authorities have changed their story about the blast.

"New evidence"? Was there old evidence that has now been challenged?

No, there was never any evidence for Hamas' claims, but you ran these unevidenced claims as if they were facts.

Spokespeople have released death tolls varying from 500 to 833, before settling on 471.

The Hamas-run health ministry has also declined to release further details about those 471 victims, and all traces of the munition have seemingly vanished from the site of the blast, making it impossible to assess its provenance.

It was impossible earlier, too, and that didn't stop you from running huge-font headlines about the Slaughter That Never Was.

Raising further questions about Hamas's claims, the impact site turned out to be the hospital parking lot, and not the hospital itself.

Further questions? How about the first questions you're asking?!

On Sunday, Hamas turned down requests by The Times to view any available evidence of the munition it said had struck the hospital, claiming that it had disintegrated beyond recognition.

"The missile has dissolved like salt in the water," said Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official, in a phone interview. "It's vaporized. Nothing is left."

Oh? Do huge munitions just "dissolve like salt in water"? I though these things were made of, you know, metal.

More at David Strom's article.

The Times has now responded to criticism that they are absolving themselves from blame. They post this "Editor's note."

The Times's initial accounts attributed the claim of Israeli responsibility to Palestinian officials, and noted that the Israeli military said it was investigating the blast. However, the early versions of the coverage -- and the prominence it received in a headline, news alert and social media channels -- relied too heavily on claims by Hamas, and did not make clear that those claims could not immediately be verified. The report left readers with an incorrect impression about what was known and how credible the account was.

The Times continued to update its coverage as more information became available, reporting the disputed claims of responsibility and noting that the death toll might be lower than initially reported.

The New York Times has been admonished previously for admitting small errors, like the exact date of birth or someone or the exact number of people killed in a blast, while refusing to admit their huge gigantic errors.

Their fake corrections of small details suggest falsely that the Times must also correct big errors. In fact, they do not.

Within two hours, the headline and other text at the top of the website reflected the scope of the explosion and the dispute over responsibility.

Given the sensitive nature of the news during a widening conflict, and the prominent promotion it received, Times editors should have taken more care with the initial presentation, and been more explicit about what information could be verified.

Note that they're hiding this "Editor's note," and not attaching it to their disinformation articles about the blast. David Strom did not find it until later, after he'd taken the Times to account for absolving itself of blame.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 01:20 PM

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