On October 7, Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing 1,400 people. In the following thirteen days, the Israeli military has barraged the Gaza Strip with airstrikes, killing over 3,700 people. The world has watched in horror, the kind that's mediated and filtered through unreliable or premature accounts and irresistible bias. A wave of anguish has swept the discourse in print and broadcast, cable news, social media, and the world’s dinner tables and streets, and now, the "fog of war" now is subsumed into a fog of everything. This week, Brooke Gladstone tracks through the confusion, disinformation, and scramble in the coverage of the conflict, including the bombing of al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza and the unverified claim of "40 beheaded babies" in Israel, and examines how media organizations and journalists are covering the conflict.
This is a segment from our October 20, 2023 show, The Fog of War, and the Deadly Toll of Reporting from Gaza and Israel.