On Wednesday, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights published a report alleging that Israeli forces carried out a mass execution of civilians in Northern Gaza, separating 11 men from their families and summarily shooting them.
Of course the IDF should investigate itself. I’m sure they are completely unbiased.
Clearly you’re right. But the UN report did not say what the article said it said. Which means it’s biased reporting.
The article prefaces every item with the word “alleged” or “alleges”, just like the report. How is this biased?
Because that word is not in the title
What are you expecting from “World Socialist Website”? Fact-based reporting? I don’t think so.
For a site calling itself “socialist”, it sure is scared of unabashedly calling out an apartheid ethnostate.
It really isn’t, look at the other articles on that site
You’re right, ig that article was a rare miss then.
I would like the articles referenced here in this community to be fact-based, and I would like our discussion to be based on reality. The situation is bad enough as it is without having to make things up
While I see what you mean by that, is the title being “biased” equal to the article being biased? Seems like all doubts are resolved upon reading the first paragraph.
Most people don’t read the articles, they read titles and they take the inference and go to the comments and fight. Titles that are misleading are effectively lies.
In the propaganda war, titles are ammunition
Okay, good point, like I said, I know what you mean about the title, but does a bad title necessarily mean the article is not factual?
At this point, with the US influence on UN reporting bodies, I believe independent reporters over UN reports concerning the atrocities committed upon the Palestinian people.
And that’s totally fair. And probably correct. But this article says the UN says something that the UN is not saying. Which means it’s a bad article
It doesn’t though. Only the headline does that. That’s not good, but the article itself is not bad because of its headline.
If the majority of people only read the title, poisoning the title is effectively making the article bad. Even if the article itself is sufficiently conditioned.
So I will stand by my conviction that this is a bad article for this community.
Hmmmm, I find it strange that you are being pedantic and insistent on the title spoiling the whole article. The article does an excellent job being factual, linking to all its claims, and backing them all up.
I read the title again and again and I believe this is just a disagreement on the meaning of “report”, between you vs. the rest of the readers who had no issue with it + the authors themselves.
Now I’m starting to think using the word “report” was actually more accurate… they literally mean that there was a report from the UN.
Reading the article again helped me realize this. Maybe it can help you too?
I think they’d just rather it said “UN reports Israeli forces are alleged to be carrying out mass summary executions in Gaza.”
Still doesn’t make the IDF look good, but it’s a fair point.
Cool, no problemo. Can we now go back to discussing the killings?
What? The article says exactly what the report says. ‘Allege’ is legal shorthand for ‘we say this is true’
The title does not say allege. The title says something very different
No, the title says precisely the same thing. To ‘report’ something to be true is the same as to ‘allege’ something to be true.
To report something is to make a finding. You may have an interesting definition of report, but the common usage is about findings. The UN did not make a finding that Israel committed a mass killing. The implication of the title is the UN made a determination which it did not do.
The UN is calling on Israel to investigate an allegation but it did not make a finding.
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/report
I feel like this is quite pedantic.
considering you and I have both agreed the title is misleading. I’m not being pedantic. You understood what I meant, and you have acknowledged it.
So when the question of what the title actually means came up, it seems like a worthwhile discussion
Actually I read it again and changed my mind… wrote you another comment, do check it.
I think we’ve moved out of ‘not understanding’ and into the realm of ‘you don’t want to believe and you also don’t want others to’ territory.
Which would be fine if you were more honest about it. Have a nice day.
Fighting over dictionary definitions is the least interesting type of discussion. That’s why we have dictionaries