‘An embarrassing moment’ at CNN
In November, CNN International Diplomatic Editor Nic Robertson embedded with the Israeli army to visit Gaza’s bombed-out al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital.
Once inside, military spokesperson Daniel Hagari claimed to have found proof Hamas was using the hospital to hide Israeli captives. Hagari showed Robertson a document on the wall written in Arabic, which he said was a roster of Hamas members watching over the captives. “This is a guarding list. Every terrorist has his own shift,” Hagari told Robertson.
To make matters worse, the Israeli claim had already been debunked by Arabic speakers on social media before the CNN footage aired, and, according to multiple CNN journalists and an internal WhatsApp chat seen by Al Jazeera, a Palestinian producer alerted her colleagues, including Robertson, but was ignored. After the report aired on television, they said, another producer tried to get it corrected before it was posted online.
‘No balance’ at the BBC
In the days after October 7, the BBC set up an internal group chat in which producers could screen potential interviewees based on their online footprint. Al Jazeera has obtained messages from that chat.
“It was overwhelmingly guests on the Palestinian side of things who were being looked into,” she said. “Palestinians [were] being flagged up for using the word Zionist, which isn’t something to flag necessarily.”