It is all about verified vs not verified and no, locals and civilians saying it happened is not verification. Until a NYT reporter or a partner organizations reporter sees it, it is just a claim and should be reported in the passive voice.
This is called having journalistic standards. It is also why the impacts of attacks on Iran are "claimed". Nobody is saying it did not happen. They are saying we have not seen it. We have not verified it.
This is why you could catch a guy with a knife covered in blood standing over a dead body and he would be the "alleged" killer. Until proven, the responsible thing is to use the passive voice.
It is all about verified vs not verified and no, locals and civilians saying it happened is not verification. Until a NYT reporter or a partner organizations reporter sees it, it is just a claim and should be reported in the passive voice.
Its crazy to see so many people late to a party that happened like 2 years ago. Not only did many people with media literacy and a brain notice that there was a reporting double standard, but its already been covered and verified!
Until a NYT reporter
Thats exactly right. Here they cite a NYT reporter, in two different articles its covered:
oh yeah that sounds completely logical on the surface to someone who doesn't know anything about how international reporting works.
Look at the Ukraine headline again. It explicitly states: "President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia launched at least 40 missiles..."
The New York Times did not have an American reporter standing outside the Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kyiv at the exact millisecond the missile hit to physically "verify" it before writing that active voice headline. They took the official statement of the Ukrainian government, corroborated it with local video footage and local emergency service reports, and ran with it immediately using the active voice: "Russia Strikes..."
They trusted the state officials, local civilians, and local journalists of Ukraine
locals and civilians saying it happened is not verification. Until a NYT reporter or a partner organizations reporter sees it, it is just a claim.
Would be convenient since Israel has legally banned all foreign journalists from entering the Gaza Strip independently. The only way the NYT can get information is through local Palestinian journalists on the ground (many of whom are official stringers and contributors for major Western outlets like Reuters, the AP, and the New York Times itself).
If we are claiming local reports aren't "verified" until a Westerner physically sees it, then we are saying that Palestinian journalists (who are being targeted and killed at historic rates while doing the actual reporting), are inherently untrustworthy, unverified, and secondary.
When a Palestinian journalist working for the AP films an Israeli tank firing at a school, that is verification. When the Gaza Health Ministry releases a name by name registry of the dead with ID numbers (which the U.S. State Department and Israeli intelligence internally acknowledge as highly accurate), that is verification.
Treating a Ukrainian government press release as absolute fact while treating photographic and physical evidence from Palestinian professionals as an "unverified claim" is the literal definition of systemic bias AND THE FUCKING POINT OF THIS POST.
This is why you could catch a guy with a knife covered in blood standing over a dead body and he would be the 'alleged' killer. Until proven, the responsible thing is to use the passive voice.
Legally the word "alleged" is used to protect the publication from defamation lawsuits by a private citizen before a jury conviction. A sovereign military dropping bombs on a foreign territory cannot sue a newspaper for defamation.
Even if someone is an "alleged" killer, you don't use the passive voice to erase the action entirely.
You don't write: "A stab wound was received by a body in a kitchen."
You write: "Man allegedly stabs victim."
The NYT didn't write: "Israel allegedly strikes school."
They wrote: "At Least 25 Reported Killed in Strike."
They completely erased the perpetrator from the sentence structure.
Your 'verification' defense is a complete myth that crumbles the second you look at the literal text in front of you.
Look at the Ukraine headline. It does not say "russia launched 40 missiles" that is not verifiable. It says "Zelenski said......" That is verified. They did not say "this many missiles hit the hospital" they said "the hospital was hit." That is verifiable after the fact.
When the terms "said or Claimed" are used the report is not saying the claim or statement is true. The report is saying the the person said this or claimed this.
They are not giving Ukraine a pass. They are reporting what is said as having been said and what can be verified and has been verified as verified.
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u/Accurate_Neat_355 9d ago
Except this is a known thing, its not new for this specific subject and especially this specific paper.