On Tuesday, the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal put out alerts saying a blast at a Gaza hospital was caused by an Israeli airstrike, killing more than 500 people, citing Palestinian officials.
It soon became clear the story wasn’t going to end there. Israel denied it was responsible. Over the hours, headlines were tweaked, new alerts went out, and by Wednesday, both news organizations were reporting that Israel and the U.S. government said evidence suggested the blast was caused by a Palestinian group.
Reporting during wartime is always challenging—from managing physical-safety risks to sorting through disinformation. The confusion in newsrooms over the blast at the Gaza hospital, which journalists couldn’t access, was a prime example of the challenge—as a sensitive story line took dramatic turns with new facts coming to light.
“During any breaking news event, we report what we know as we learn it,” a Times spokesman said. “And as the facts on the ground become more clear, we continue reporting. Our extensive and continued reporting on the hospital in Gaza makes explicit the murkiness surrounding the events there.”
A spokeswoman for the Journal had no comment on the Gaza hospital blast coverage.
Other major news organizations also attributed the blast to an Israeli airstrike in their initial reporting, citing Palestinian officials. It is difficult for news organizations to verify information in a war zone, including claims made by combatants about the damage they’ve suffered or inflicted.
Washington Post International Editor Douglas Jehl said the Post has been cautious regarding assertions from sources on either side of the war, due in part to the extraordinary velocity of the story.
We “take steps to remind our reporters that the first reports in a war are often wrong, and we need to take a pause to make sure we’re not jumping to conclusions,” he said.
Jehl also said the ease with which misinformation can be spread on social media and the rise of artificial intelligence that can create realistic-looking footage have made fact-checking even more challenging.
The Post is leaning heavily on a visual forensics team to validate videos and other information, Jehl said. “We’re very aware of disinformation and manipulated images from AI.”
Bill Grueskin, a professor at Columbia Journalism School and a former Journal editor, said one challenge that news organizations face is the lack of resources on the ground in Gaza, where the hospital was hit.
“Imagine if someone was on the ground an hour after the blast, shooting live video, someone from a credible news source,” he said. “That would have had a lot of power.”
Grueskin said explainers and so-called “how we know what we know” sidebars can be used to explain the reporting process to readers and build trust.
Getting the facts straight isn’t the only challenge. News organizations are paying close attention to their language in describing the conflict and the parties involved, mindful that many readers and viewers are sensitive about how the war is portrayed.
At the New York Times, internal guidelines created parameters for language like “terrorists,” a term that often should be used when referring to the attackers who “stormed into Israel to kill and kidnap civilians,” according to a staff memo sent by International Managing Editor Gregory Winter on Oct. 11. Other descriptors like “gunmen” can also be used at times, while language such as “militants” and “fighters” should be avoided, according to the memo.
“Militants” is confusing for many readers, the memo said. “Is it stand-in for terrorist or is [it] an attempt at a more neutral word that takes on some additional meaning beyond terrorist?”
Also on Oct. 11, the Post told staff it was now calling the conflict “the Israel-Gaza war” rather than the Israel-Hamas war, according to a message reviewed by the Journal.
Hamas’s initial coordinated cross-border attack on Israeli civilians can be described as “terrorism,” according to the Post guidelines. But the Post advised that “terrorism” or “terrorist” should come with attribution.
“In any conflict, it’s a time that’s important to remind people of standards and usage,” said Jehl. “It’s particularly important in this case because it’s such a polarized conflict in which the words are so hotly debated.”
Hamas in particular is a complicated organization to describe, according to senior news employees. A CNN employee said it is complex to find the right words to describe Hamas, and many other aspects of the conflict.
The Journal doesn’t refer to Hamas as a terrorist group in its own voice, but says the U.S. characterizes the organization that way. A note to senior editors clarified that and other aspects of war coverage.
The Journal spokeswoman said the Journal refers to the Oct. 7 attacks on the kibbutzim and the rave as terrorist attacks in its reporting.
Some journalists are frustrated about how their outlets have covered the war.
After the Washington Post published a story about the Gaza hospital blast titled “Hundreds feared killed in strike on Gaza hospital, Palestinian authorities say,” Laura Wagner, who covers media for the Post, wrote the following post on X: “There is no good reason for a headline to say ‘hundreds feared dead in strike on hospital’ instead of ‘Israeli strike on hospital kills hundreds.’ This selective passive voice is not only weirdly stilted, it obscures the reality of what’s happening.”
The post has since been deleted. The Washington Post referred comment to Wagner.
“My original intention was to call out headlines across coverage, and I ultimately deleted my tweets so they wouldn’t be interpreted as direct reference to our own coverage, which they were not intended to be,” Wagner said in a statement. “I respect the diligent work of my colleagues across the newsroom.”
At the onset of the war, several staffers at the New York Times complained internally about the framing of some of the coverage of the conflict in Israel and Gaza, according to a person familiar with the matter. Some employees were particularly wary of language that in their view aligns the Palestinian people with Hamas, such as “Palestinian gunmen,” the person said.
At the Journal, some staffers objected to the newsroom’s use of the word “militant” instead of “terrorist” to describe Hamas, according to employees.
Write to Alexandra Bruell at alexandra.bruell@wsj.com