One of the first things I learned as a newspaper reporter was that if a story didn’t feel right, if something nibbled away at you , telling  you that you were missing a piece of a puzzle, you should stop. Pay attention to your instincts.

I was at The Washington Post in 1980 when the paper ran the Janet Cooke story about an 8-year-old heroin addict named Jimmy. That was the compelling story that won a Pulitzer. Unfortunately, it was fiction.

There was a lot of soul-searching in the newsroom in the aftermath of the Cooke scandal. Editors asked themselves why they’d been so eager to believe an unbelievable story. Reporters who’d been suspicious wondered why they didn’t speak up.

Will there be similar introspection this week, now that almost every major news outlet regurgitated a lie about Israeli airstrikes hitting a hospital in Gaza, fed to them by the same terrorists who’d massacred more than 1,000 Israelis?

I doubt it. 

Fog of war will be the excuse.

But just take a look at what masqueraded as actual journalism late on Tuesday and Wednesday morning. Breaking news! An Israeli air strike hit a hospital in Gaza, killing 500.

Where did these news outlets get this misinformation? From the Gaza Health Ministry.

And who runs the ministry?

Hamas.

Yep, the same terrorists who are holding almost 200 hostages and who invaded Israel and killed about 1,300 innocent Israelis on Oct. 7th put out a false narrative and the media bit.

Proof - if any was needed - that these news outlets often serve as left-wing propaganda organs rather than actual news gatherers.

Here’s the thing: From the earliest bulletins, the story that Israelis were bombing hospitals made no sense. After all, Israel had been begging residents of Gaza to leave their homes and head to parts of the territory where they’d be safe. They’d been dropping noise bombs before real ones to alert civilians that a bomb was coming. Why would a fighting force that was trying to minimize civilian casualties target a hospital?

The “Israeli air strike” story never passed the smell test.

By Wednesday morning, Israelis were able to provide irrefutable evidence that it wasn’t an Israeli air strike, but rather a misfired Hamas missile that led to the explosion. American intelligence at the Pentagon confirmed that version.

Headlines began to change, but the damage was done.

Oh, and the Hamas missile hit a parking lot next to a hospital. While the hospital was slightly damaged it seems inconceivable that 500 people could have died in such a blast.

This wasn’t just another false story being spread by the media. It was a dangerous piece of pro-Hamas  propaganda. 

As a result of the blame-Israel-for-the-hospital attack, riots exploded all over the Arab world and marches full of Hamas sympathizers grew in the U.S. The American embassy in Beirut had to be briefly evacuated and other American and Israeli diplomatic buildings were under siege.

As the day wore on, the headlines changed and the news sources reluctantly admitted that it looked as if the hospital parking lot was hit by a misfired Hamas missile. Did they apologize? Not really.

Facts be damned, members of the Hamas Ladies Auxiliary, better known as the Squad, left their inflammatory Tweets about the fictitious Israeli air strikes on the social media platform, refusing to apologize or take them down.

These two ought to be censured by the House Ethics Committee and perhaps removed from Congress for supporting terrorism, but nothing is getting done in the House as the GOP bickers over a new Speaker.

One more reason these numbskulls need to get their act together and agree on a leader. 

Today.