International editor says he doesn’t ‘feel particularly bad about’ his inaccuracies
BBC’s international editor Jeremy Bowen admits he ‘got it wrong’ in his coverage saying the Gaza Al-Alhi hospital was “flattened” (it was never even bombed), but still said he “doesn’t regret one thing” about his reporting and doesn’t feel particularly bad.
I think I just have to agree to disagree. It’s a simple philosophy problem in my head
“Hospital got flattened”
“Hamas doesn’t have munitions to flatten hospital”
“Israel flattened the hospital”
If you’re reporting about a flattened hospital in Gaza, you’re tactically supporting the idea Israel did it by simply reporting that a hospital got flattened. It also shouldn’t suprise you that’s how many people online ran with it.
The report of a massive explosion outside the hospital would have lead the same people who made assumptions about Israel being responsible to assume that Israel was responsible.
Yeah it would lead neutral observers to beleive Israel flattened a hospital since they are the only ones immediately in the region with the munitions to do so. Both things can be true
But there was a massive explosion outside the hospital. Are you really saying that that shouldn’t have been reported with the caveat ‘we don’t know who is responsible’ because people would have assumed it was Israel ?
No, im saying the reporting the explosion in the parking lot of a hospital as “flattening the hospital” was irresponsible and it’s no wonder it would make people think Israel blew it up by simply stating those things as facts. It was irresponsible to report it this way, especially since there was no evidence to suggest that was the case.
Yeh. We agree, he fucked up by making a hasty assumption about the hospital explosion, based on the drone footage he was seeing.
I’m saying that if he had reported accurately- a large explosion outside of the hospital - people would still have made the same assumption that Israeli action caused it.
You’re probably right but I think the bigger issue is he can use cover of “well people would have ran with whatever narrative anyways so it’s really not relevant to people jumping to that conclusion.” In my opinion, we 100% should criticize him and recognize that it helped foster the sentiment it was an Israeli attack. Either way, the bigger issue is he doesn’t think he did anything wrong reporting that way and I think thats a problem. Appreciate the back and forth.
Likewise. Thank you for making me think - I’m still pondering now.
Edit: If you want to see the source interview with Bowen, it’s quite interesting. It’s hear https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0gts7c1/behind-the-stories-on-the-front-line-jeremy-bowen - start at 14:30.
He’s asked if he regrets anything he said that evening and he says no - then he’s challenged on the “flattened” comment and he says “Oh yeh - well, I got that wrong. I was looking at the pictures … and that was my conclusion looking at the pictures and I was wrong on that”.
He basically comes across as pissed off that the Israeli’s wont open the borders so that reporters can observe directly. But yes - he should have started with “that was a cockup on my part”