10.19.2023

Following up on yesterday's note here…

 …the New York Times this morning published a half-hearted mea culpa for getting the story about the Gazan hospital so wrong. Gee, they say, it's really hard covering news from war zones so we have to go with whatever random rumors we read on social media (or words to that effect…read it for yourself).

Folks, the news business…and it is a business, never forget…is not about news. It's about selling toothpaste (and, in the case of the New York Times, stuff from Gucci). Eyeballs are everything.

If they wait (this is not an excuse…it's an explanation) until they know what they're talking about somebody else will get your eyeballs and their advertisers' bucks.

It's hard to cover news from war zones. It's even harder to know what the news is.

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