“Journalists have a tendency now—and I once went to journalism school, so I know this—to go with faster is better and correct things later. And that is a very bad idea,” Ms. Bryen told NTD News’ “Capitol Report” on Friday.
Ms. Bryen shared her concerns about the journalistic standards for verification and accuracy in light of how media outlets reported that the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza was rocked by an explosion on Tuesday.
The blast near the hospital came as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been carrying out airstrikes on Gaza and various Palestinian factions like Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad have fired rockets throughout southern Israel. The fighting there comes after Hamas gunmen breached the Israel-Gaza barrier and proceeded to kill hundreds of people and take around 200 hostages on Oct. 7.
During his visit to Israel on Wednesday, President Joe Biden shared the U.S. assessment that Israel was not directly responsible for the Gaza hospital strike.
“It would have been very helpful for the media, to say, there’s been a bombing, something happened, we need to get more information, we need to get reliable information, and we‘ll come back to you with that,” Ms. Bryen said of the coverage of the hospital strike. “They didn’t do it, they went straight to ’Israel killed 500 people in a hospital.'”
Ms. Bryen argued that how media outlets initially cover an incident is important because audiences are not always aware when those same outlets issue corrections, and often will continue believing the initial coverage. She’s concerned that this latest dispute over the facts in Gaza hospital strike will also turn public perception against Israel’s military campaign.
“What you’ve seen is a variety of people who’ve said, well, Israel blows up hospitals in Gaza, and they killed 500 people, and so we can’t support Israel.' You get a tremendous blowback from that,” she said. “. . .Whatever comes out first is the thing that has the most credibility.”
Beyond urging the media to be careful in verifying its reporting, Ms. Bryen also urged people to wait and be more skeptical of the claims and reporting they are seeing about the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.
“It’s one thing to say people shouldn’t take everything at face value. People should wait. People should think about these things. But it’s very hard not to, if you really believe that 500 Gaza civilians were killed in a hospital. Any person with a heart is going to be upset by that,” she said.
