How would you report on the IDF releasing an initial report that said they didn’t kill them on purpose?
Does their rephrasing of the headline to “Reuters and AP journalists killed in Gaza strike were not ‘a target,’ an Israeli military spokesperson says” make a difference?
I’m not saying it was a perfect headline, but it’s hardly misinformation.
Yes, that rephrasing helps. Or something along the lines of “Israel Denies Deliberate Targeting of Reuters Journalist in Killing”.
All of these options are factual. Every redaction has an editorial policy. The choice not to contextualize a headline is an editorial choice by definition. So is the choice of which institutions’ press briefings to report on.
“[Redaction] doesn’t editorialize titles” is as much of an oxymoron as “[Government official] doesn’t do politics”. The unwillingness to take accountability for unavoidable decisions is a huge red flag and points to either duplicity or a very submissive approach to decision-making.
It’s true that all publishing decisions are ultimately editorial, but there’s a big difference between deciding to report on what IDF and Hamas representatives say while not reporting on social media opinion, and reporting speculation and interpretation of events.
I don’t feel like they failed to contextualize the headline. It was a subpar headline updated for clarity shortly after publication.
There just seems to be a lot of jumping on one of the more factual and objective news sources for a headline taken out of context for failing to include sufficient context.
It’s virtually impossible to conclusively prove ill-intent for any individual headline like this. However on the whole there is a clear bias from mainstream media outlets towards under-critically perpetuating Israel’s official, carefully controlled narrative – a narrative that they control in part through their own legitimacy as a recognized state, and in part through the deliberate murder and suppression of journalists.
Israeli state officials keep putting out factually incorrect, disingenuous, harmful public statements to distract from their ongoing genocide. It pollutes an already VERY saturated information space, and any headline that uncritically passes on such a decontextualized F.U.D. fails its duty as journalistic messaging.
Again, it could be an honest mistake from Reuters. But in such troubled times, it’s getting very hard to forgive those mistakes as innocent when the impact of such repeated failures has been so great.
It’s hardly uncritically accepting of Israels narrative goals, which would be expected for a news outlet that tries to report objectively.
Given that the initial headline, which I don’t think was as bad as people are responding, was shortly changed and their long history of good reporting and current history of seemingly not following someones dictated narrative, I’m inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Sure, I’m not trying to dunk on Reuters specifically, I don’t really care either way. It’s about the principle of the thing, and the overall pattern of uncritical reporting in mainstream media.
F.U.D. is a strategy that works exceptionally well. It only takes a few headlines to sow the seeds of doubt that make uncontroversial stances increasingly untenable. Whether it’s Trump’s transparent lies, Big Oil/Tobacco/Asbestos’ transparent funding of bogus “studies”, or Israeli genocide denial, it doesn’t matter; once these narratives are allowed to spread decontextualized and uncontradicted, well-intentioned actors are forced to spend an wildly asymmetric amount of time and energy into debunking insane and disingenuous claims before they can even begin to lay out their own arguments.
With this in mind I don’t think it’s unreasonable for people to be mad that a respectable journalistic institution would let even a single headline through that uncritically propagates Israeli F.U.D. covering up for war crimes.
I mean, I honestly don’t think “Initial inquiry says Hamas camera target of Israeli strike that killed journalists” is uncritical propagation of Israeli FUD.
It’s not a good title, since it clearly causes a misunderstanding and it doesn’t convey key information like “whose investigation”, but it’s not disinformation.
Yes. If a Rwandese government spokesperson said the same thing about Rwandese military killing a Reuters journalist in eastern Kivu, Reuters would not quote their statement as “initial inquiry says”. And likewise if China said the same thing about Chinese military killing a Reuters journalist in Xinyang province.
Reuters would be skeptical towards a genocidal regime with a long history of lying to Reuters if that genocidal regime wasn’t in NATO. It would clarify who was doing the inquiry just to remind readers and journalists buying the story off them that that organisation is not to be trusted.
Headlines are compact. Their words are carefully chosen. Leaving out who is doing the inquiry is as much of a statement as any other word choice. Anyone who reads headlines understands that leaving it out means the inquiry is being done by a relatively trusted institution.
But yeah, of course it’s “hardly misinformation”. That’s how all good propaganda works. If a news source lies to you, you’re better off not reading it. But if it tells you truths in a misleading way, then maybe the truth can empower you more than the misleadingness can harm you…
Or when one of their staff was killed by Russia, but they couldn’t confirm ukranian statements that it was a Russian missile so they reported the ukranian statement and made it clear that the could not confirm if it was Russia or if it was deliberate?
I’m incredulous that Reuters should be categorized as Israeli propaganda because one headline, clarified shortly after publication, is accurate but lacking an explicit source.
That’s why getting your news from a screen shot of a screenshot of Twitter isn’t a good idea. A new source can correct or clarify a headline, but the screenshot is forever.
Also, Israel isn’t in NATO. I’m not sure if you meant that as another caveat but it sounded like you were saying they were.
Should I dismiss your comment as misinformation because it appears you implied that Israel was in NATO?
If “Israel claims that it was a Hamas camera” is misinformation, then that means Israel has never made that claim.
Are you sure the inquite made by Israel did not claim that it was a Hamas camera? Where did Reuters invent the claim, which is quite damning for Israel? (And if Israel never made that erroneous claim in their inquiry but Reuters lies that they did, doesn’t that make Reuters anti-Israel rather than pro-Israel?)
Nothing about being a “non-editorial news source” requires them to put misinformation in the title.
Did they put misinformation in the headline?
How would you report on the IDF releasing an initial report that said they didn’t kill them on purpose?
Does their rephrasing of the headline to “Reuters and AP journalists killed in Gaza strike were not ‘a target,’ an Israeli military spokesperson says” make a difference?
I’m not saying it was a perfect headline, but it’s hardly misinformation.
Yes, that rephrasing helps. Or something along the lines of “Israel Denies Deliberate Targeting of Reuters Journalist in Killing”.
All of these options are factual. Every redaction has an editorial policy. The choice not to contextualize a headline is an editorial choice by definition. So is the choice of which institutions’ press briefings to report on.
“[Redaction] doesn’t editorialize titles” is as much of an oxymoron as “[Government official] doesn’t do politics”. The unwillingness to take accountability for unavoidable decisions is a huge red flag and points to either duplicity or a very submissive approach to decision-making.
It’s true that all publishing decisions are ultimately editorial, but there’s a big difference between deciding to report on what IDF and Hamas representatives say while not reporting on social media opinion, and reporting speculation and interpretation of events.
I don’t feel like they failed to contextualize the headline. It was a subpar headline updated for clarity shortly after publication.
There just seems to be a lot of jumping on one of the more factual and objective news sources for a headline taken out of context for failing to include sufficient context.
It’s virtually impossible to conclusively prove ill-intent for any individual headline like this. However on the whole there is a clear bias from mainstream media outlets towards under-critically perpetuating Israel’s official, carefully controlled narrative – a narrative that they control in part through their own legitimacy as a recognized state, and in part through the deliberate murder and suppression of journalists.
Israeli state officials keep putting out factually incorrect, disingenuous, harmful public statements to distract from their ongoing genocide. It pollutes an already VERY saturated information space, and any headline that uncritically passes on such a decontextualized F.U.D. fails its duty as journalistic messaging.
Again, it could be an honest mistake from Reuters. But in such troubled times, it’s getting very hard to forgive those mistakes as innocent when the impact of such repeated failures has been so great.
I mean, you can go look at Reuters headlines for the middle east.
https://www.reuters.com/world/israel-hamas/
It’s hardly uncritically accepting of Israels narrative goals, which would be expected for a news outlet that tries to report objectively.
Given that the initial headline, which I don’t think was as bad as people are responding, was shortly changed and their long history of good reporting and current history of seemingly not following someones dictated narrative, I’m inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Sure, I’m not trying to dunk on Reuters specifically, I don’t really care either way. It’s about the principle of the thing, and the overall pattern of uncritical reporting in mainstream media.
F.U.D. is a strategy that works exceptionally well. It only takes a few headlines to sow the seeds of doubt that make uncontroversial stances increasingly untenable. Whether it’s Trump’s transparent lies, Big Oil/Tobacco/Asbestos’ transparent funding of bogus “studies”, or Israeli genocide denial, it doesn’t matter; once these narratives are allowed to spread decontextualized and uncontradicted, well-intentioned actors are forced to spend an wildly asymmetric amount of time and energy into debunking insane and disingenuous claims before they can even begin to lay out their own arguments.
With this in mind I don’t think it’s unreasonable for people to be mad that a respectable journalistic institution would let even a single headline through that uncritically propagates Israeli F.U.D. covering up for war crimes.
I mean, I honestly don’t think “Initial inquiry says Hamas camera target of Israeli strike that killed journalists” is uncritical propagation of Israeli FUD.
It’s not a good title, since it clearly causes a misunderstanding and it doesn’t convey key information like “whose investigation”, but it’s not disinformation.
FUD != Disinformation.
Propagating a lie without conveying that it’s coming from a notorious liar is technically correct but also the very definition of FUD.
Yes. If a Rwandese government spokesperson said the same thing about Rwandese military killing a Reuters journalist in eastern Kivu, Reuters would not quote their statement as “initial inquiry says”. And likewise if China said the same thing about Chinese military killing a Reuters journalist in Xinyang province.
Reuters would be skeptical towards a genocidal regime with a long history of lying to Reuters if that genocidal regime wasn’t in NATO. It would clarify who was doing the inquiry just to remind readers and journalists buying the story off them that that organisation is not to be trusted.
Headlines are compact. Their words are carefully chosen. Leaving out who is doing the inquiry is as much of a statement as any other word choice. Anyone who reads headlines understands that leaving it out means the inquiry is being done by a relatively trusted institution.
But yeah, of course it’s “hardly misinformation”. That’s how all good propaganda works. If a news source lies to you, you’re better off not reading it. But if it tells you truths in a misleading way, then maybe the truth can empower you more than the misleadingness can harm you…
What about when nearly the exact same thing happened and they reported it was baseless?
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/idf-confirms-killing-al-jazeera-journalist-says-he-was-hamas-operative-2024-08-01/
Or when one of their staff was killed by Russia, but they couldn’t confirm ukranian statements that it was a Russian missile so they reported the ukranian statement and made it clear that the could not confirm if it was Russia or if it was deliberate?
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/reuters-staff-hit-strike-hotel-ukraines-kramatorsk-2024-08-25/
I’m incredulous that Reuters should be categorized as Israeli propaganda because one headline, clarified shortly after publication, is accurate but lacking an explicit source.
That’s why getting your news from a screen shot of a screenshot of Twitter isn’t a good idea. A new source can correct or clarify a headline, but the screenshot is forever.
Also, Israel isn’t in NATO. I’m not sure if you meant that as another caveat but it sounded like you were saying they were.
Should I dismiss your comment as misinformation because it appears you implied that Israel was in NATO?
True story, in media, the article authors do not write the headlines, for some stupid reason.
If “Israel claims that it was a Hamas camera” is misinformation, then that means Israel has never made that claim.
Are you sure the inquite made by Israel did not claim that it was a Hamas camera? Where did Reuters invent the claim, which is quite damning for Israel? (And if Israel never made that erroneous claim in their inquiry but Reuters lies that they did, doesn’t that make Reuters anti-Israel rather than pro-Israel?)