Sure. That doesn’t mean the people she talks with know what they are talking about or don’t have their own agenda. “Arab journalist” is not the same as saying expert. Ok I presume they speak Arabic. That covers a large part of the world. Are they from Qatar, Kuwait, Algeria? Each region has its own syntax and slang. Are they experts on how people talk in Gaza? Have they been to Gaza? We don’t know. They are anonymous.
Al Jazeera has seemed to back off from its headlines calling it an Israeli air raid but it’s still giving at least equal strength to the Palestinian propaganda that Israel did it. That’s despite the fact the video showing clearly what happened was shown on Al Jazeera when it happened. Are those the Arabic journalists?
But that’s precisely the point I am making. I believe that Andrea Mitchell is a first-rate journalist and that her ability, experience and integrity is such that she would speak to Arab journalists that knew what they were talking about and didn’t have their own agenda.
Journalists cite anonymous sources in their investigations all the time. Probably most articles one reads have “an anonymous source told us”, “speaking off the record, an unnamed official told us”. It’s standard practice in journalism, and doesn’t normally elicit such demands for sources to be named or such doubts about the faithfulness of what the sources are saying as the scrutiny these two Arab journalists are being subjected to in this thread.
And you know her (or the actual journalist) ability to gauge someone’s language skill? I have no reason to doubt the report. Someone said it didn’t sound right.
Are you saying that if a non-English speaker asked you to listen to an audio recording in which the speakers were speaking in English you wouldn’t be able to provide them with any insight into “language, accent, dialect, syntax and tone”?
That you wouldn’t be able to tell if the words used didn’t make sense or were arranged in a way that didn’t form sentences? You wouldn’t be able to tell the difference a between the accent of one English-speaking nation from another or a regional American accent? That if, say, a couple of Frenchmen made a recording pretending to be Texans the average American wouldn’t be able to tell?
I don’t know how familiar you are with various conspiracy theories. I got my first exposure in the mid-nineties, with the David Khoresh fiasco. Afterwards, a friend of mine showed me a video that demonstrated all the obvious problems with the FBI story, with the strong implication that the FBI had deliberately set the compound on fire.
Only all the “obvious” problems weren’t obvious at all to me. What was obvious is that the documentarian desperately wanted to blame the FBI, so they interpreted every bit of evidence in the manner most devastating for the FBI, no matter how strained that interpretation.
I learned from that experience a deep skepticism of folks who desperately want a certain conclusion to be true. Which is why, in this case, I really don’t feel able to reach a clear conclusion: I don’t know any experts who aren’t strongly biased toward one conclusion or another. They may be out there, but I don’t know who they are.
Two unnamed Arab journalists? Are they sober and impartial observers, or do they desperately want this to be an IDF massacre rather than a misfired rocket?
Was your friend who showed you the video a well-respected journalist from a well-respected news outlet? Also, was the video itself made by a journalist?
Well, they are absolutely fundamental differences. It’s the equivalent of taking medical advice from a qualified doctor rather than some rando who has no medical training.
I’m honestly not clear what you’re arguing at this point. How credible do you find the alleged recording at this point? I’m saying that the jury’s out. Are you confident that it’s a fake?
I love Al Jazeera. I read their news alerts daily. They employ lots of excellent journalists. But they also hate Israel. They write with a strong anti-Israel bias.
Might a couple of Al Jazeera journalists hear problems that a less biased witness didn’t hear? Yeah, i think that’s likely enough that there’s some doubt.
Might the IDF have faked that recording? Absolutely.
I basically think that recording has no real value, either way.
The Google images on the other hand, seem convincing. The small size of the blast chamber is uncontested. Even Al Jazeera has walked back their initial claim, and now seems to be suggesting that an Israeli missile might have gone off in the air, or maybe an iron dome missile intercepted something in the air, and that somehow triggered the damage. Their article ends by saying “we haven’t yet recovered the debris that would indicate what kind of missile it was”.
You mean, like all the newspapers and other media outlets that, out of a deep concern for journalistic integrity, resisted the urge to title their articles “Israel kills 500”? Those are the journalists we should trust so much?
My point is that I feel the efforts in this thread to discredit the Channel 4 journalist and the two Arab journalists, as well as what they said, seem to go far beyond the normal or healthy level of skepticism that I would expect one to apply to a report from a reputable journalist from a reputable news organisation.
Sure–I’m asking you to explain how credible you find it. I know you’re unimpressed with us, but are you confident that the recording is a fake?
Please, by the way, don’t quote me as evidence that people are discrediting the journalist. I just don’t think it’s enough to give or withold credit, which is a subtle but important distinction.
What level of skepticism do you consider appropriate when it comes to reports from reputable journalists working for reputable organizations?
Because I saw a hell of a lot of “reputable” journalists at “reputable” news organizations loudly and often parrot the claim that “Israeli airstrike destroys hospital, kills 500”, mentioning 3 or 4 paragraphs in that the only source for the story was a Hamas spokesperson.
Most of those “reputable” organizations didn’t come out and admit their mistake, they just stealthily edited their articles when it became clear they were full of shit.
Then I’m not clear on what you’re disputing. If you were completely confident in the journalist’s story and in the claims of his sources, you’d be confident the recording was a fake. That you think it’s unproven means you aren’t 100% confident, just like everyone else in this thread. I really don’t understand what you’re arguing over.
Normally, when a reputable journalist relays information from someone, there aren’t dozens of comments from people attempting to discredit and, in some cases, ridicule the journalist and the source of the information. That’s abnormal.