We didn't know the Washington Post had fairness standards, but apparently they do, enough to delete a post to X on Tuesday afternoon. They even corrected the story. Remember the story about Israelis shooting Gazans waiting in line for aid that turned out not to be true, but was picked up by all of the major news outlets. CNN said 26 Palestinians were killed. The Associated Press reported that 21 were killed and 175 were injured. Fox News reported that dozens were killed and nearly 200 were wounded. The BBC reported that 150 people were injured.
As our fearless leader, Sam J., reported on Sunday, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation released video surveillance footage of the aid distribution site in question that showed that the alleged massacre didn't happen.
Some sites still have the story up, but The Washington Post deleted its post, stating that the article didn't mention that the "casualty" numbers came from the Gaza Health Ministry (i.e., Hamas) and hadn't been verified by the Post.
Correction: We’ve deleted the post below because it and early versions of the article didn’t meet Post fairness standards.
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 3, 2025
The background: Early versions of the article on Sunday stated that Israeli troops had killed more than 30 people near a U.S. aid site in Gaza, with the… pic.twitter.com/KseRXgJn6A
The post continues:
… headline attributing the action to “health officials.”
The article failed to make clear if attributing the deaths to Israel was the position of the Gaza health ministry or a fact verified by The Post. The article and headline were updated on Sunday evening making it clear that there was no consensus about who was responsible for the shootings and that there was a dispute over that question.
While statements from Israel that it was unaware of injuries and that an initial inquiry indicated its soldiers didn’t fire at civilians near the site were included in all versions, The Post didn’t give proper weight to Israel’s denial and gave improper certitude about what was known about any Israeli role in the shootings. The early versions fell short of Post standards of fairness and should not have been published in that form.
"The Post didn't give proper weight to Israel's denial." Why was that, we wonder?
WaPo: We're sorry that we willingly pushed Hamas propaganda and got caught again.
— Matt Vespa (@mVespa1) June 3, 2025
Also, there is no doubt this type of fake news has fueled the current rash of antisemitic terrorism
Yeah, it's not a good time for fake news about Israeli atrocities.
Damage done https://t.co/mD4YnG6VfR pic.twitter.com/FMBEwa1J0g
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) June 3, 2025
AFTER over 2 million people saw it!
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) June 3, 2025
Shame on you.
No one cares about another apology from you.
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) June 3, 2025
How many people were fired? How will you ensure to prevent this in the future.
Hey, if you guys weren't objectively terrible and untalented people, you wouldn't have this problem.
— Tony Kinnett (@TheTonus) June 3, 2025
You are awful people. What you did was wrong. You did this intentionally. Name the staff responsible. Tell us why they wrote this, edited this, and published this in this way. Name their sources. Did your staff literally copy and paste from Hamas? @washingtonpost
— Ben B@dejo (@BenTelAviv) June 3, 2025
Will heads roll, or is that another meek apology to be repeated verbatim next time the same source is used?
— Jonny Melamet (@jonnymelamet) June 3, 2025
We'll be seeing "According to the Gaza Health Ministry" again soon, guaranteed.
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