As we have all seen, the media got the entire “hospital being destroyed in Gaza” story completely wrong. No less a media “expert” than Brian Stelter is even saying so.

The entire set of circumstances has been a sickening display of how the media, desperate to return to their preferred narrative, swallowed the story that Hamas fed them wholesale. If Hamas said that an Israeli airstrike hit the hospital, then it OBVIOUSLY was an Israeli airstrike. If Hamas said that 500 people were killed, then OF COURSE 500 people were killed and this was Israel’s fault. Then, the IDF began to push back. And they pointed out that nearly every single media outlet believed Hamas, even as the video evidence and audio evidence said otherwise. The media did not wait. “If it bleeds, it leads” is the rule, after all.

Media outlets around the globe were quick to run Hamas’ headlines—without fact checking.

We now know that an Islamic Jihad rocket aimed at Israel misfired and hit the hospital in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/DzJgsbxS4i

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 17, 2023

And then Joe Biden got up and said that American intelligence backed up the Israeli story – as Old Joe idiotically explained, it was “the other team.” In this case, Islamic Jihad, deciding to join in the party by firing off rockets into Israel. Grandpa Brandon continued later with his stellar explanations, telling the media on board Air Force One that the terrorists need to work on their aim. Uh, WUT.

“I’m not suggesting that Hamas deliberately did it,” the president said at Ramstein Air Base in Germany en route back to Washington after visiting Israel earlier in the day.

“It’s that old thing: Gotta learn how to shoot straight,” Biden went on.

“It’s not the first time that Hamas has launched something that didn’t function very well.”

If it was possible to pass out from secondhand cringe, I’m guessing that Biden’s comms team might do it. Regardless, when daylight came, it was clear that the hospital in question was still standing, and only the parking lot had been hit. And the number of dead? Also very much in question.

There is drone footage from before and after that shows the same as above. Also inconsistent with an airstrike. https://t.co/3DoImxFppa

— AG (@AGHamilton29) October 18, 2023

As the day continued, the walkbacks began. Rashida Tlaib, of course, was holding fast to her belief that the hospital had been destroyed and Israel was responsible. Ilhan Omar, however, decided that she knew who to blame now for the egg all over her face.

I love that she’s blaming the @AP https://t.co/mCiVf9MMh5

— John Now at Friendster Ekdahl (@JohnEkdahl) October 19, 2023

While Ilhan Omar still wants a “fully independent investigation” to figure out what happened (even though she should have known better to run with a story just because it confirmed all her priors), it’s clear that the media screwed this up and it has had devastating consequences. In the last 24 hours, a historic synagogue in Tunisia was burned to the ground. The U.S. embassy in Beirut was targeted by protestors, as was the Israeli embassy in Jordan. There were protests across the Middle East, all because the media believed Hamas instead of waiting to see the evidence for themselves. A group even occupied the Cannon House Office Building in Washington DC – many were arrested, and I look forward to their prosecution as “insurrectionists.”

In the midst of all the media stealth editing their previous stories, Brian Stelter appears. The former CNN host and Zucker toady has some strong words for the media.

During a Wednesday evening appearance on NewsNation’s Dan Abrams Live, Stelter said:

Sometimes, Dan, you’re out there criticizing the media and I want to defend the media, but there is no defense here. This was an atrocious series of mistakes by many different major newsrooms all around the same time on Tuesday and unfortunately I don’t think there’s been enough follow-up or accountability to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

I’ve noticed oftentimes in breaking news stories, breaking news scenarios, when information is lowest, interest is highest, and by the time we actually know the facts, people move on. Well, this was one of those cases, but it was even worse because when the stakes are highest, it seems the standards were the lowest, and it should be the opposite. The standard should be the highest when the stakes are as high as they are right now.

He continued, “There is no doubt this was a tragedy at the hospital, but there was this rush to judgment based on a one-sided story from whatever the opposite of a reliable source is, and that’s what was so disturbing about Tuesday, and like I said, because there hasn’t been a follow-up, a kind of series of accountability, I’m worried that it could keep happening.”

Stelter concluded, “First, do no harm. You’re like a doctor, don’t make a terrible situation worse. War is already hell, it should not be made worse by misreporting, but I fear that on Tuesday the media made a bad situation worse. They actually did harm as opposed to trying to do the opposite.”

There are two ways to react to how Brian Stelter is reacting to the media’s colossal screw-up. One is to point and laugh at the media, because even Brian Stelter is calling them out. The other way is to point and laugh at Brian Stelter, because…. DUDE, YOU’RE BRIAN STELTER.

https://t.co/gIS7VBxtNr pic.twitter.com/4efD17vL2E

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) October 19, 2023

Really, the same man who fawned over Michael Avenatti, called for the censorship of Fox News in the name of “harm reduction,” who went on the attack in order to cover up Jeff Zucker’s sins, is going to point the finger at the media in THIS moment and scold them? The man who wrote, in regard to Radar Online preparing to publish the Zucker story:

They post something nutty; they claim to have multiple sources, but they don’t check with the subject at all; and they aren’t swayed by reality. Then they garner follow-up coverage from outlets with an ounce of credibility, which triggers even more coverage, and eventually the original “report” is two or three or four steps removed from the unreliable source. Ordinary users end up reading, sharing and sometimes *believing* a lie without realizing the original story was garbage. (emphasis in the original)

What the actual hell, Tater. You don’t have a leg to stand on here. You consistently twisted the narrative to serve YOUR purposes. Now that you are seeing it on this scale, NOW you’re upset??? I hate to break it to you, but all those little twists and lies that you told added up to get us where we are today, with a media who is so biased that they will believe AN ACTUAL TERRORIST GROUP over the only legitimate democracy in the Middle East. One moment of moral clarity is good, but YOU helped create this problem. And don’t even start with “media accountability,” you who tried smearing an outlet because they had the goods on your boss.

Irony is officially dead when Brian Stelter has the nerve to complain about a biased media making things worse.

Featured image: original Victory Girls art by Darleen Click