Becket Adams
National Review, June 8, 2025
“With this worldview baked into so many reporters’ brains, it’s not surprising that there’s a readiness to publish even the most outrageous claims about the war, regardless of how absurd or lacking in evidentiary support they are.”
If you believed the recent claims about starving babies in Gaza or Israeli troops opening fire on a crowd of Palestinian civilians at an aid depot, you’ve been misled, according to those who initially misled you.
Yes, corporate newsrooms are scrambling (again) to explain how they (again) mishandled their coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas.
On June 1, the Washington Post, CNN, and others reported that Israeli troops had “opened fire on [Palestinians] making their way to collect aid,” killing dozens. Earlier, on May 20, NBC News, The Guardian, and others reported that an estimated “14,000 babies could die in the next 48 hours if many more aid trucks do not reach Gaza.”
The Washington Post, CNN, and others have since revised the initial reports falsely accusing the IDF of shooting civilians, either stealth-editing their articles or retracting them completely. NBC News, The Guardian, and others have also significantly revised or withdrawn reports from May warning of the imminent starvation of 14,000 babies in Gaza.
They can offer half-hearted mea culpas all they want, while vowing to identify the underlying cause of their failure. Yet the simplest and most accurate explanation lies in major media’s current editorial preference, which can be summed up as a “willingness to believe the worst of its enemies and the best of its friends.” (Yes, I’m quoting myself.)….SOURCE