Words of the Week: Model Language for Wartime Reporting
Having observed this language, more than once, in reporting from The Times of Israel, I share it here as a model for how such statistics should be presented.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says over XXX people have been killed in the fighting, though these figures cannot be independently verified, and are believed to include both civilians and Hamas members killed in Gaza, including as a consequence of terror groups’ own rocket misfires. The IDF says it has killed over XXX operatives in Gaza, in addition to some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
I wish that that Hamas would surrender this minute. That they would return the remaining hostages (including, as awful as this sounds, the bodies of the dead). No more people would die.
But so long as this terrible war goes on, journalists and media outlets have a responsibility to report it as accurately as possible. Too often, they are not doing so—certainly not as they report figures reported by “the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza” (frequently, they don’t even mention that this ministry is Hamas-run). I’ve been particularly dismayed to see some Jewish media fail on this score. Everyone must do better.
Following The Times of Israel‘s example here can help.
