4 ms·

That would explain the factual inaccuracies that I've noticed in their reporting since the events of October. I assumed it was because of a religious ideology,

That would explain the factual inaccuracies that I've noticed in their reporting since the events of October. I assumed it was because of a religious ideology, but a state sponsor makes sense too.

ngcazz 3y ago
Can you provide examples where they've been debunked?
- throwing_away 3y ago
  Where it crystalized for me was watching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital_explosio... as it happened live. The AJ coverage: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/10/16/israel-hamas-war-live-iran-warns-resistance-front-may-attack https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/10/16/israel-ha... From reading the AJ coverage, you would believe that Israel bombed a hospital and killed hundreds. An inexcusable atrocity, obviously, if it were true. But on Wikipedia, you can see the actual impact of the bombing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital_explosion#/media/File:Aftermath_of_Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital_explosion_(1).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital_explosio... The US and Israel's story of it being a jihad rocket seems consistent with the explosion. The intelligence assessment that it was dozens not hundreds dead seems much more plausible to me. The AJ perspective seems to be to treat Hamas claims as valid by default throughout this conflict, which I find concerning.
  - dekhn 3y ago
    Al Jazeera was not unique in their short-term coverage - nearly all western outlets also wrote similar articles shortly afterward, based mainly on unsupported statements from Palestinians. As soon as day broke and people saw the actual photos of the impact area it was clearer that attributing the attack to either side would be challenging; several reputable outfits in the US even wrote short postmortems to understand why they did what they did and to prevent it in the future.
    - h3rsko 3y ago
      AJ still claims it was Israel. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/20/what-have-open-source-videos-revealed-about-the-gaza-hospital-explosion https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/20/what-have-open-sou...
  - abrambleninja 3y ago
    They at least have made a strong argument for their case [1]. I don't read this as taking Hamas claims as valid by default because they backed it up with reasoning from their sources. Are they correct? Hard to say for sure, but there's more evidence for it than just "Hamas said this so we believe it." [1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/19/what-hit-ahli-hospital-in-gaza https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/19/what-hit-ahli-hosp...
    - throwing_away 3y ago
      They continue to make very strong arguments and propagate their story into western media (Channel4 did a story about it and so did NYT). They even have explainer videos, like the one you linked, or this one here from a month later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60EK-3-kGLI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60EK-3-kGLI Their arguments are well produced and cast doubt on the Israeli/American story in every possible way. But isn't that also what a sophisticated propaganda campaign would look like? As I said, I watched it unfold live, and my assessment was that they couldn't possibly know there were 800 dead on such short notice. When the sun rose, I expected to see a leveled hospital, like so many other buildings in Gaza. Instead, I saw a tiny crater in a parking lot. It was then that I learned the "Ministry of Health (Palestine)" is actually a government agency, effectively Hamas. That was the entity that supplied the numbers that drove the headlines that caused so many more problems. You might think "Who would exaggerate the numbers of dead to cause international outrage!? That's unthinkable!". But they are literal terrorists. This is the playbook. In the video you linked, they don't show the impact site. They don't mention that the hospital is still very much functioning. They don't show the surrounding buildings not having been impacted. But if you were making an honest assessment of "israeli airstrike on hospital" or "stray rocket hit hospital parking lot", those details make a huge amount of difference. When it happened, I thought we would see retractions from AJ and other Arab media after the sun rose, but they were continuing to run the "Israel bombs hospital" story while omitting key video and photo details that were widely available on Wikiepdia.
    - euzi 3y ago
      On the other hand, most western news outlets are going "Israel said this so we believe it." despite the serial lies

That would explain the factual inaccuracies that I've noticed in their reporting since the events of October. I assumed it was because of a religious ideology, but a state sponsor makes sense too.

ngcazz 3y ago

Can you provide examples where they've been debunked?

throwing_away 3y ago
Where it crystalized for me was watching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital_explosio... as it happened live. The AJ coverage: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/10/16/israel-hamas-war-live-iran-warns-resistance-front-may-attack https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/10/16/israel-ha... From reading the AJ coverage, you would believe that Israel bombed a hospital and killed hundreds. An inexcusable atrocity, obviously, if it were true. But on Wikipedia, you can see the actual impact of the bombing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital_explosion#/media/File:Aftermath_of_Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital_explosion_(1).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital_explosio... The US and Israel's story of it being a jihad rocket seems consistent with the explosion. The intelligence assessment that it was dozens not hundreds dead seems much more plausible to me. The AJ perspective seems to be to treat Hamas claims as valid by default throughout this conflict, which I find concerning.
- dekhn 3y ago
  Al Jazeera was not unique in their short-term coverage - nearly all western outlets also wrote similar articles shortly afterward, based mainly on unsupported statements from Palestinians. As soon as day broke and people saw the actual photos of the impact area it was clearer that attributing the attack to either side would be challenging; several reputable outfits in the US even wrote short postmortems to understand why they did what they did and to prevent it in the future.
  - h3rsko 3y ago
    AJ still claims it was Israel. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/20/what-have-open-source-videos-revealed-about-the-gaza-hospital-explosion https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/20/what-have-open-sou...
- abrambleninja 3y ago
  They at least have made a strong argument for their case [1]. I don't read this as taking Hamas claims as valid by default because they backed it up with reasoning from their sources. Are they correct? Hard to say for sure, but there's more evidence for it than just "Hamas said this so we believe it." [1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/19/what-hit-ahli-hospital-in-gaza https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/19/what-hit-ahli-hosp...
  - throwing_away 3y ago
    They continue to make very strong arguments and propagate their story into western media (Channel4 did a story about it and so did NYT). They even have explainer videos, like the one you linked, or this one here from a month later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60EK-3-kGLI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60EK-3-kGLI Their arguments are well produced and cast doubt on the Israeli/American story in every possible way. But isn't that also what a sophisticated propaganda campaign would look like? As I said, I watched it unfold live, and my assessment was that they couldn't possibly know there were 800 dead on such short notice. When the sun rose, I expected to see a leveled hospital, like so many other buildings in Gaza. Instead, I saw a tiny crater in a parking lot. It was then that I learned the "Ministry of Health (Palestine)" is actually a government agency, effectively Hamas. That was the entity that supplied the numbers that drove the headlines that caused so many more problems. You might think "Who would exaggerate the numbers of dead to cause international outrage!? That's unthinkable!". But they are literal terrorists. This is the playbook. In the video you linked, they don't show the impact site. They don't mention that the hospital is still very much functioning. They don't show the surrounding buildings not having been impacted. But if you were making an honest assessment of "israeli airstrike on hospital" or "stray rocket hit hospital parking lot", those details make a huge amount of difference. When it happened, I thought we would see retractions from AJ and other Arab media after the sun rose, but they were continuing to run the "Israel bombs hospital" story while omitting key video and photo details that were widely available on Wikiepdia.
  - euzi 3y ago
    On the other hand, most western news outlets are going "Israel said this so we believe it." despite the serial lies