I recall an apocryphal story from 1971. India dropped 5000 paratroopers in East Pakistan/Bangladesh behind Pakistani lines and the BBC reported 50,000; and this supposedly demoralized the Pakistanis. When it was too late, the BBC said "oops! we made a mistake".
I have no idea of whether this story is true, but it is a fact that in those days everyone in the sub-continent thought that the BBC was reliable and credible.
Good news organizations have an area of competence, and if you figure out what that is, you can rely on them as long as the news relates to their area of competence. The problem is that even good news organizations go outside their area of competence. NYT, BBC, WaPo, CNN, al Jazeera all have their limited uses.
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Re: current situation:
Palki Sharma on FirstPost has been careful, and admits that they too have been taken in by fakes. Not sure whom else can be relied on.
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Here is a real story, involving 1971 and a BBC mistake.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-ne ... OJpOP.html
Maj Gen Ian Cardozo says a mistake made by the BBC during the 1971 war helped his unit take on and defeat a numerically superior Pakistani force.
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At the time, Cardozo was a major in a 5 Gorkha Rifles battalion, comprising about 750 soldiers, that was tasked with capturing Atgram near Sylhet.
It was short of artillery and food supplies, but ultimately managed the surrender of two Pakistan Army brigades, including three brigadiers, a colonel, 107 officers, 219 JCOs and 7,000 troops in one of the most incredible successes of the war.
Speaking at a book release event here, he said: “Today I would like to use this platform to pay tributes to the BBC. They were the only reliable broadcasting station at that time, giving news as it happened. The Indian Army had nothing to hide, so the British war correspondents were going along with our troops.
“They were reporting minute-to-minute the progress of the battle. But they made a mistake. They announced that a ‘brigade’ of Gurkhas had landed at Sylhet. We heard it, as well as the Pakistanis. So we decided to pretend that we were a brigade.”
Taking advantage of the misinformation, Cardozo’s battalion built on small victories and created a situation where the Pakistani troops offered to surrender on December 15, 1971. Until it happened, Cardozo and others believed a Pakistani brigade was in the area, but they were surprised to discover the final number was more than twice the strength of a brigade.