CNN Corrects Report That Blamed Gaza Hospital Explosion on Israel
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CNN issued a correction to a report on the Gaza hospital explosion, a mass casualty event that sparked an international debate about coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.
The explosion at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital sparked international uproar when the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Ministry of Health blamed the incident on an Israeli airstrike and claimed it resulted in some 500 casualties. A number of news outlets, including the New York Times, AP and CNN, reported on those claims before Israel issued a statement denying responsibility.
In the days after the attack, initial intelligence from the U.S. and France supported Israel’s claim that the explosion was caused by a misfired rocket launched by the Islamic Jihad militant group.
Media outlets have faced pressure and condemnation for taking the Ministry of Health at its word without further sourcing. The New York Times published an editor’s note conceding that it “relied too heavily” on the word of Hamas.
CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy called out his own network’s coverage in his Reliable Sources newsletter, writing that CNN went as far as to pin blame for the strike on Israel with no attribution.
“Not only did the outlet amplify Hamas’ claims on its platforms at the outset of the story, but its initial rolling online article definitively stated — with no attribution to any party — that Israel was responsible for the lethal explosion,” Darcy wrote. “The story was later edited, but the error was never acknowledged in a correction or editors’ note. While it is common for news outlets to update online stories as new information becomes available, when errors are made, standard practice is to acknowledge them in formal corrections. A CNN spokesperson declined to comment specifically on the online story when reached Monday.”
CNN has now added a correction to their online article about the hospital explosion, admitting they failed to attribute initial claims about it to Hamas.
From the note:
This article on the Gaza hospital blast initially did not clearly attribute claims about Israel’s responsibility to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza. Israel later said a “misfired” rocket by militant group Islamic Jihad caused the blast and produced evidence to support its claim. US President Joe Biden said the Israeli position is backed by US intelligence. CNN’s forensic analysis of images and videos suggests a rocket fired from within Gaza caused the blast, not an Israeli airstrike.
An earlier version of this story also misidentified the embassy protesters attempted to reach in Amman. It was the Israeli embassy.
The initial CNN story had as its headline: “Israel hits hospital and school in Gaza as blockade puts healthcare system in state of ‘collapse’”
“A school and a hospital in Gaza were among the places lethally blasted by Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday as humanitarian concerns mount over ongoing deprivation of food, fuel and electricity to the isolated population,” read the lead of the story.
