Are journalists, as a group, the least intelligent of any profession? I think they may be, and the war between Israel and Gaza is bringing out the worst in them. Check out this exchange, in which a clueless reporter floats the theory that the ratio of terrorists to innocent hostages released under the recent agreement is evidence of Israeli racism:
The first question that left me speechless (but only for a second): pic.twitter.com/P4Bh0SKtl9
— Eylon Levy (@EylonALevy) November 23, 2023
We see in action here a person who is not just biased, but is of below normal intelligence.
Reporters have gotten one thing wrong after another, beginning with the Gazan massacre of October 7. If you have the impression that journalists don’t mind being wrong, when their errors discredit Israel, it turns out that you are right:
BBC international editor Jeremy Bowen has admitted his coverage of the alleged bombing of a hospital in Gaza was “wrong” but still said he “doesn’t regret one thing” about his reporting.
Speaking in a television interview, the veteran reporter said he was incorrect to have suggested Al-Ahli hospital “was flattened” in an explosion on Oct 17.
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In an item on BBC One’s News at Ten, hours after the first reports of an explosion, Mr Bowen said: “The missile hit the hospital not long after dark. You can hear the impact.“The explosion destroyed Al-Ahli hospital. It was already damaged from a smaller attack at the weekend. The building was flattened.”
Everyone now knows that it was a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket that landed in the parking lot of the hospital, which was more or less undamaged. It was all a Hamas lie. Does the BBC regret endorsing terrorist propaganda? Not at all:
Asked about the report in an interview on Behind The Stories on the BBC News channel on Saturday, Mr Bowen said: “So it broke in, I suppose, mid-evening and to answer your question, no, I don’t regret one thing in my reporting because I think I was measured throughout. I didn’t race to judgment.”
His false accusation against the Israeli Defense Force was “measured.” And, hey, he didn’t race! He took his time before repeating Hamas’s lies, for which he seems to think he deserves a gold star.
Pressed further about saying the hospital had been “flattened”, he said: “Oh yeah, well I got that wrong because I was looking at the pictures and what I could see was a square that appeared to be flaming on all sides and there was, sort of, a void in the middle. I think it was a picture taken from a drone.
“So, you know, we have to piece together what we see and I thought, ‘It looks like the whole building has gone’.
“That was my conclusion from looking at the pictures and I was wrong on that, but I don’t feel particularly bad about that. It was just the conclusion I drew.”
Mr Bowen said sometimes the corporation had to “rely on things people say” as well as looking “at the multiplicity of videos” that are released before making a judgment on what to report.
So the BBC doesn’t really mind being wrong, as long as its reports advance the company’s anti-Israel position. An astonishing admission–or it would be, if one had the slightest confidence in the press.
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