During a White House meeting, President Biden reportedly blasted The New York Times’ controversial coverage of an explosion near a Gaza Strip hospital.
A report from Semafor alleged that Biden met with Wall Street executives in the White House’s Roosevelt Room last week and discussed the paper along with its claim that Israel was behind the explosion. He was particularly disturbed such a headline appeared "in an American newspaper."
"Israeli Strike Kills Hundreds in Hospital, Palestinians Say," the original New York Times headline read on Oct. 17.
According to Semafor, "[Biden] thought the headline was irresponsible and could have triggered military escalation in the Middle East." Within the same day of the headline’s publication and others like it blaming Israel for the blast, prominent Arab leaders canceled their meeting with Biden.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.
The Times received intense backlash for its headline on Oct. 17 as well as its coverage on the explosion. The story claimed, through information released by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, that Israeli airstrikes caused an explosion at a Gaza hospital that killed hundreds. Israel denied the claims and presented evidence that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad was behind the blast. U.S. intelligence confirmed that Israel was not behind the explosion.
The Times soon released a lengthy editor’s note apologizing for its reliance on unverified claims by Hamas.
"The Times’s initial accounts attributed the claim of Israeli responsibility to Palestinian officials, and noted that the Israeli military said it was investigating the blast. However, the early versions of the coverage — and the prominence it received in a headline, news alert and social media channels — relied too heavily on claims by Hamas, and did not make clear that those claims could not immediately be verified. The report left readers with an incorrect impression about what was known and how credible the account was," Times editors wrote.
Semafor also reported that a person familiar with the situation said the Times’ staff has put pressure on writers to not rely on the Gaza Healthy Ministry’s numbers for stories. However, the article stated that "independent journalists" said the Health Ministry’s numbers have been "largely" consistent with other reports despite its ties to Hamas.
The piece suggested that Biden's Wall Street meeting was primarily an effort to "manage a key domestic political constituency" that is pulling funding from universities over their response to the Hamas terrorist attacks.
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Several other news organizations such as the BBC and Reuters were also criticized for relying on the Gaza Health Ministry for initial reports on the hospital explosion.
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