What? Itâs an anecdote. Itâs self explanatory.
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Yeah I donât get it, there clearly is an implication behind it from your pal and/or yourself?
Is it that the Israelis may have gone back into the army?
I took it that tensions are that high that the more senior Israeli thought it best to remove himself and fellow countryman sooner than bring that dynamic into the office?
As it was related to me, theyâve not been directly affected by the attacks, bar that they live in Israel. Theyâve not been called up to the army either.
It isnât an attempt to illustrate a wider point or imply anything. I honestly thought it was a simple and clear anecdote.
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What are you trying to say?
Israeli lad signs his compatriots off work, but not the Palestinian.
Itâs a metaphor
Never mind about the dead babies. This is the real story
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Weird story, thanks for sharing though.
I also thought it was weird.
This isnât evidence Israel did the bombing - the evidence would seem to strongly suggest they did not do it - but it is something to bear in mind.
Excellent thread:
Some quick thoughts on why large parts of the mainstream media keep slipping up on Gaza/Israel (and why it was the same at times with Covid):
The main reason is a failure to keep pace with modern news gathering techniques, but thereâs more.
With the proliferation of photos/footage, satellite imagery and map data, forensic video/image analysis and geolocation (~OSINT) has clearly been a key news gathering technique for several years now. A key news gathering technique completely absent from most newsrooms.
Obviously not every journalist should be an OSINT specialist, just as not every journalist is a specialist in combing through financial accounts, or scraping websites, or doing undercover investigations. But any large news org should have some OSINT specialists.
Some of the biggest international news orgs now do have OSINT teams (or similar). @washingtonpost calls theirs âvisual forensicsâ, @nytimes and @FT go with âvisual investigationsâ. But most news orgs, even large ones, still donât.
This means that when you have events unfolding rapidly amid a fog of war, most news orgs are still completely reliant on what theyâre told by their sources. This isnât ideal at the best of times, but especially so when different sources are clearly motivated to mislead.
It was the same during Covid, when everyone was quoting officials talking about things that could easily be checked and sometimes debunked by someone capable of doing their own data analysis. But there werenât enough of those skills in newsrooms, so unchecked claims abounded.
Even when newsrooms have built up these resources (whether OSINT or data) the newness of those teams means thereâs some initial wariness about relying on new people (often young and not from traditional journalism backgrounds, so considered outsiders) for massive news lines.
The result is most mainstream news orgs today are either simply not equipped to determine for themselves whatâs happening in some of the worldâs biggest stories, or lack the confidence to allow their in-house technical specialists to cast doubt on a star reporterâs trusted source
So you end up with situations where huge, respected news organisations are reporting as fact things that have already been shown by technically adept news gatherers outside newsrooms to be false or at the very least highly uncertain. Itâs hugely damaging to trust in journalism.
Even without an in-house OSINT team, organisations like @bellingcat and @airwars have been around for almost a decade now to assist. With a situation like Gaza/Israel, any time youâre getting a comment from an official spokesperson, you should also be getting a comment from OSINT
Of course, news orgs also donât help themselves by insisting on coming out with definitive takes immediately.
I obviously get the desire to be first, and the instinctive dislike of ambiguity.
But in situations like this, surely itâs better to be second and definitively correct?
Plus, with the sheer amount of footage these days, and the number of OSINT specialists combing through it, weâre often only talking about waiting a few hours.
Iâm sure mainstream media will catch up, but it needs to happen fast in order to retain trust and even relevance, or readers will go elsewhere.
âAccording to a spokespersonâ just doesnât really cut it when the primary evidence is right there.
Beyond OSINT, I think the overarching issue is:
Thereâs an implicit assumption in most of journalism that the only way to find out whatâs happening is to ask someone.
For years now itâs been possible to do better than that, but the industry has not fully taken this on board.
One final thought:
Fact-checks after the fact are inherently limited. âA lie is halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots onâ.
Forensic, investigative, truth-seeking work should be a proactive part of breaking news coverage, not a reactive add-on afterwards.
Isnât this what Mark Little set up a company to do for the mainstream media before it was bought up?
The Government Information Office in Gaza reports that as of now there are 3,478 martyrs and 12,065 injured in the Gaza Strip.
At least 1000 of the dead are children. Hundreds were killed in areas where Israel asked them to move to for shelter.
And yet the US are rowing in further behind a modern day genocide. This is just utterly bizarre.
After last night itâs probably wise to take any information put out by Hamas with a grain of salt because itâs likely to be significantly embellished. That said, what Israel is doing is still indefensible.
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Itâs not remotely bizarre, theyâve rowed in behind any number of modern day genocides.
Theyâre the greatest nation ever, bigly, they can do what they want for gods sake
Why would you believe anything Hamas are saying? They told the world yesterday that Israel bombed a hospital and up to 1,000 people were dead. Thatsâs being walked back today after it turns out it was their brothers in arms that were responsible.
Civilian casualties are a reality fo war, distastful as it is. Name a war where there were no civilian casualties. While youâre at it name another country that is surrounded by hostile countries that are dedicated to their total elimination. We got a taste of it on October 7th when no one was spared, men, women, elderly, children and babies slaughtered.
If it wasnât for the US there wouldnât be a Jew left alive in the Middle East. A lot of the crazed online rhetoric yesterday after the hospital bombing would support that goal, not on here thankfully but social media is awash with posts calling for the elimination of Israel. Disgusting freaks.
Hamas needs to be eliminated, Hezbollah as well and Iran neutered. The alternative is an actual genocide.
- The US has used its veto at the UN security council to block a resolution calling for Israel to allow humanitarian corridors into the Gaza Strip, a pause in the fighting and the lifting of an order for civilians to leave the north of the besieged enclave. The UK abstained.
Ireland will provide âŹ13m (ÂŁ11m) in funding for humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people, TĂĄnaiste and foreign affairs minister, **MicheĂĄl Martin,**announced.
The funding will help the UN and others provide essential support to âextremely vulnerable people, in particular those in Gaza who are dealing with acute and severe challengesâ, a statement from his office said.
We are witnessing tragic and shocking events in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory in the aftermath of the heinous attack by Hamas on Israel. I have said repeatedly that there should be a humanitarian ceasefire to meet the urgent basic needs of the people in Gaza. It is essential that humanitarian relief is provided to those who need it.
So you think itâs ok for Israel to advise innocent civilians in Gaza to move to a place out of harmâs way and then murder them when theyâre there?
Gaza and the West Bank are surrounded by an extremely hostile force that wants to wipe them out, yes.
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