“Just breathe,” was how Los Angeles Times investigative reporter, Adam Elmahrek, told attendees to process misinformation during wartime in his speech on campus.
Elmahrek spoke on Thursday about “Media Misinformation and the Fog of War in Gaza,” and how to approach news updates coming out of the Middle East and war situations in general, as both a consumer and reporter.
Elmahrek mentioned the claim that Hamas beheaded babies during an attack in Israel on Oct. 7 and some advice he gave in a tweet concerning escalating emotions expressed online.
“Please everybody, let’s take a deep breath, let’s take a pause. The whole thing about beheaded babies, claims about mass rape, you know some of this stuff is, you know it’s not verified, it’s not vetting,” stated Elmahrek in the tweet.
“Let’s take a pause and at least make this clear.”
Elmahrek said there are two kinds of misinformation. One kind concerns human error-based incorrect impressions of what a reporter sees and hears.
“When you’re tweeting out something out that’s happening in real time, there’s a strong possibility of misinterpreting or misjudging what you’re seeing until you see it more clearly, and then you could kind of sort of self-correct,” Elmahrek said.
For this, Elmahrek used an example about this kind of misinformation in his own tweets following a recent hospital blast in Gaza, in which he misreported the damage based on the information he had.
Elmahrek also warned against the second kind of misinformation, resulting in increased emotions of vengeance.
Elmahrek explained that reporting on the hospital bombing changed quickly. It went from Israel being responsible and that hundreds were killed, to it being an accidental backfiring of one of Gaza’s own rockets and killing hundreds, to it having hit the hospital’s parking lot, which resulted in deaths far fewer than previously reported.
“The one that I’ve been trying to warn, you know, at the top of my lungs about, is repeating unverified claims from either side in a war, unverified claims that are intended to whip up feelings of vengeance,” Elmahrek said.
Attendees had the opportunity to ask questions by writing them down on cards after Elmahrek’s initial comments.
Elmahrek answered one question about the challenges of accurately reporting in situations of war with observations he made about journalists approaching foreign conflict coverage from their experience as breaking news reporters.
“I think as an industry we really have to actually reform ourselves on this and really teach journalists to understand that partisans in a conflict, repeating that info that they tell you is not the same as a firefighter about a house fire,” Elmahrek said.
Professor Christopher Karadjov agreed with Elmahrek’s points on a personal level, having grown up seeing media workings in Bulgaria when it was under Soviet control.
Karadjov said that while easier said than done, “the job of the journalist is to keep their emotions down.”
Karadjov said this was also important for audience members taking in this information.
“If you want to know the truth, that’s the price you pay for slowing down, looking at the facts,” Karadjov said.