When the fog of war envelops everything, we owe it to those who suffer to admit doubt | Gaby Hinsliff

The BBC is under scrutiny over reports of the Gaza hospital blast. But there is a lesson for all who want clarity when there is none

Death has climbed in through our windows; it has entered our fortresses.

Throughout these days of unbearable stories, from the slaughter of small children in their kibbutz bedrooms to the fireball at a Gaza hospital where families were seeking sanctuary from bombs, those words have echoed around my mind. Taken from the biblical book of Jeremiah, they entered my thoroughly godless ears via a comforting-sounding rabbi on the BBC and stayed. It is no criticism of its competitors to say that in this house at least, in times of trouble, it’s always the BBC. Though nobody knows better than a journalist that journalists aren’t infallible, there are times when only the Pavlovian effect of the pips or of Lyse Doucet’s voice will do.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/rn0C6vY