International editor says he doesn’t ‘feel particularly bad about’ his inaccuracies
BBC’s international editor Jeremy Bowen admits he ‘got it wrong’ in his coverage saying the Gaza Al-Alhi hospital was “flattened” (it was never even bombed), but still said he “doesn’t regret one thing” about his reporting and doesn’t feel particularly bad.
The problem is, that Israel made it relatively easy to fall for these stories by doing similar things for real in the past.
So you’ve got a credible source (BBC) reporting something that’s not really unheard of (i.e. kind of plausible) and that’s happening to align with what you’ve already suspected. Bam, rumor is born.
BTW, you had the same mechanism shortly after the attacks with the “Hamas beheaded babies” stories.