It's a more subtle mistake than that - they did say "X told us Y":
> Israeli Strike Kills Hundreds in Hospital, Palestinian Officials Say
The problem isn't that they presented an unverified claim as fact - they told us that this was a claim by an official.
The problem is one of framing and headline crafting. All people took away from the headline was the "fact", because the headline did not adequately stress the providence of the information or the fact that the claim was unverified.
If you want people to come away with "X claims Y" rather than "X happened", you need to in some way stress the fact that it's an unverified claim.
I'd honestly chalk this up less to malice or journalistic malpractice in the hunt for clicks, but to simple bad writing. I'm amazed it got past the editors.
> Israeli Strike Kills Hundreds in Hospital, Palestinian Officials Say
The problem isn't that they presented an unverified claim as fact - they told us that this was a claim by an official.
The problem is one of framing and headline crafting. All people took away from the headline was the "fact", because the headline did not adequately stress the providence of the information or the fact that the claim was unverified.
If you want people to come away with "X claims Y" rather than "X happened", you need to in some way stress the fact that it's an unverified claim.
I'd honestly chalk this up less to malice or journalistic malpractice in the hunt for clicks, but to simple bad writing. I'm amazed it got past the editors.