News Literacy

Israel's bombardment of the Gaza Strip has killed thousands of children, according to Gaza's Hamas government. An image that social media posts say shows a Palestinian child trapped under rubble, however, actually appeared online at least eight months before the Gaza war, triggered by an unprecedented attack by Hamas militants against Israel on October 7. The image also bears visual irregularities that suggest it had been AI-generated, an expert told AFP.

The Guardian has taken down a letter written by Osama bin Laden after it inspired social media posts co-signing his critique of the United States.

The outlet replaced a transcript of the jihadist’s 2002 “letter to the American people” with a context note after a surge of related TikToks made it the second-most-viewed page on the site Wednesday.

After first the Israeli government and then the United States government issued statements Wednesday, with supporting evidence, that the deadly rocket exploding into the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital parking lot in Gaza on Tuesday did not emanate from Israel, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi gave an expected if telling response.

"Nobody is buying that narrative in this part of the world," Safadi told NBC. Safadi's predecessor (and also Jordan's former ambassador to Israel), Marwan Muasher, echoed that in an interview with CNN: "The Arab public puts the attack squarely on Israel."

Last week, a leaked staff memo from the director of journalistic standards and public trust at Canada’s largest broadcaster drew wide attention for instructing reporters, “Do not refer to militants, soldiers, or anyone else as ‘terrorists.’”

“Terrorism remains heavily politicized” and is too subjective and slanted a word for reporters to use outside of attributed quotes and narrow exceptions, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation cautioned. It told reporters to “use fact-based language” instead—and said calling Hamas, or anyone, a terrorist group is “opinion, not fact.”

I’ll never forget the moment the mob breached the walls of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

As a senior multimedia reporter with MediaWise, I was tracking misinformation about the insurrection as it unfolded. The year began with an existential threat to our democracy. And we wrap 2021 with a new COVID-19 variant.