dfaomiopnio

I disagree more than I agree. I certainly wouldn't claim the New York Times or Reuters or the AP or NPR are perfect. But I would say they are flawed people doing important and difficult and unrewarding work and doing it better than nearly anyone else in the world. I doubt you'd be quite so positive.

The US puts the death toll at 100-300, for whatever unclassified documents from US intelligence are worth.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/19/world/middleeast/gaza-hos...

I can't find the EU number, but I'll take your word for it.

It's entirely possible the death toll is lower. I don't claim that we know anything for certain.

>Reuters leads by saying the reports come from "health officials", "Gaza health authorities", and "Palestinian health authorities", as if these are reliable third party agencies.

Hamas is the government of the Gaza strip. Anyone following the story should know that. Unfortunately, they're the most reliable source we have for much of this information.

I will admit that it could be made clearer. There are readers who are starting from a place of ignorance. A story should be written such that a 12 year old child could understand it. Also, there are two Palestinian governments and it's not always clear which is being referred to.

But the problem here is, I think, simply that writing is hard.

>They had a front page story about the hospital showing a completely different bombed building from the other side of Gaza as if that was the hospital that was destroyed [1].

The way you are framing this is inaccurate. The same picture had been on the front page for hours before the story of the explosion was published. It was not a part of that story. Here's a capture from hours before the story broke:

https://web.archive.org/web/20231017154440/https://www.nytim...

The caption for the picture also states that it is of a different city entirely.

I won't dispute that the design could be confusing. Also, I don't think such a picture belongs in a newspaper at all. It's useless and voyeuristic, serving more to shock than to inform. But this is clearly not a problem of dishonesty.

Besides, why would they lie? The actual pictures of the aftermath don't look any prettier.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/18/world/middleeast/gaza-hos...

>The IDF seems very open about the strikes they make, were they reached out to for comment?

Yes. The very first articles say the IDF hadn't yet commented. Later articles included their comments. "Later," in this case, means "one hour later".

>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?

Israeli bombardment has hit hospitals before.

Israeli damaged hospitals in 2021, perhaps unintentionally.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/17/israeli-strike...

This is a stub of an article and the origin of the claims isn't clear to me, but it seems Israeli artillery hit the very same hospital we're discussing on the 14th.

https://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/news/news-and-stateme...

In the 2014 war Israel admitted to deliberately attacking a hospital, claiming that it contained a weapons cache.

https://www.cnn.com/2014/07/21/world/meast/gaza-hospital-att...

It is not, on its face, implausible that Israel would attack a hospital. It is also quite plausible that they would hit a hospital by mistake. They have done both of these things before.

>THEY HAD NO KNOWLEDGE OF THE ACTUAL EVENT SINCE IT NEVER ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

The event happened. There was an explosion at a hospital that killed hundreds of people. This is not in dispute.

You will notice that the "journalists" who wrote your story don't quote a single instance of these allegedly false claims. This is probably because there were none. Every single story I saw made it clear that these were allegations from Hamas, included whatever information was available from the Israeli government, and repeatedly stated that nothing was certain. There truly could not have been better early coverage. The information simply did not exist.

This is the earliest version of that story I could find from Reuters.

https://web.archive.org/web/20231017192141/https://www.reute...

But you could definitely argue that that article repeats the claims from Gaza too uncritically, which is why it was updated within seven minutes of publication to make it clearer the reports were unsubstantiated.

https://web.archive.org/web/20231017195440/https://www.reute...

But that still gives a one-sided story. They say that the Israeli government has yet to comment. Which is why the story was updated again to include information from the Israeli military, arriving at this version within an hour:

https://web.archive.org/web/20231017202059/https://www.reute...

The fog of war isn't just in video games. As usual, the New York Times has a good article on this subject.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/18/business/media/hospital-b...

You might argue (and I would argue) that it is irresponsible to publish any story at all when things are so uncertain. That's why I don't read breaking news.

P.S. There were "around 500" deaths. 200-300 is "around 500" when picking through rubble in a war zone.