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Comment by diggan | Hacker News Reader

> Remember that time when the AP and Reuters published headlines that Israel had bombed a Palestinian hospital with 500 dead? When was that? Two days ago?

If I recall those headlines correctly, they all included with "said Palestinian officials" or similar, which makes the reporting factual no matter who actually bombed the hospital. They were reporting on official statements, not making claims about what happened.

Similar things happen all the time. "State department officials say X" and similar isn't AP or Reuters making claims about X being true or not, they're just reporting statements.

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"...said Palestinian officials" is such a slimy way to absolve them of responsibility.

People around the world trust them, like OP over here. They have a responsibility to do even basic verification work before posting something that they know will ignite riots around the world. The IDF seems very open about the strikes they make, were they reached out to for comment? Should the reporter have thought to themselves, "hey, does it make sense that Israel would bomb a hospital packed with civilians right as the US president is about to visit? Would Israel so blatantly destroy the relatively high global goodwill and backing they currently have? What do they have to gain?" It makes no sense if you think about it for half a second, yet these "reputable news sources" sent push notifications to millions of people to spew a complete lie form Hamas when THEY HAD NO KNOWLEDGE OF THE ACTUAL EVENT SINCE IT NEVER ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

> People around the world trust them, like OP over here. They have a responsibility to do even basic verification work before posting something that they know will ignite riots around the world.

Yes, I'm sure they verified exactly what Palestinian officials said. What they didn't verify (and what the articles were not about) is if the "facts" the Palestinian officials gave them were correct or not. The articles are not investigative articles that strive to report only the truth and facts, but more informal articles that gives you what various people had said.

No they did not. I was following this very closely as it happened. Obviously I don’t remember the exact phrasing, but at least Reuters had put in their headline wording similar to “Israel bombs Gaza Hospital, killing 500”.

In the text it was less clear, but the damage was done. I lost all respect for Reuters because of this.

I know, because I was arguing on Reddit(person has since deleted their comments, because they were spreading FAKE NEWS) while it was happening.

https://www.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/s/B7HLYVmrqL

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