Last month, Robert Satloff analyzed a Washington Post article that took “a fundamentally good-news story about premature babies from Gaza cared for by compassionate people across enemy lines and turned it into a horror story” of Israel maliciously separating babies from their mothers. Satloff noted the poor sourcing of its claims and misleading framing. After looking into the report more closely, he realized it was even worse than he thought, and its allegations rely heavily on an unchecked report by an NGO. He presents a forensic dissection:
What’s the bottom line? All the key elements of the story that appeared in print on November 17, occupying most of the front page above the fold, were either false, unsubstantiated or, at a bare minimum, rejected by statements by Israeli government officials who painted a very different picture from the one presented by the Post. The reporters appear to have taken on face-value claims and assertions made by the Palestinian mothers and the hospital administrators, without any independent verification. Their failure to seek comment from the relevant Israeli authorities violated the most fundamental rules of journalism.
At the very least, the Post would then have had a “he-said/she-said” story, presenting two contradictory views of the same situation. Why the Post’s editors did not insist that the reporters follow these rules may be the most inexplicable part of this tale.
Read more on Times of Israel: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/did-nasty-israelis-really-separate-palestinian-mothers-from-their-babies/