A routine live-blog entry about an Iranian missile strike has turned into something far stranger for Times of Israel military correspondent Emanuel Fabian: a dayslong pressure campaign from online bettors who allegedly stood to lose big if he didn't tweak a key detail. In a first-person account, Fabian describes how his March 10 report—stating that an Iranian ballistic missile had hit an open area near Israel's Beit Shemesh—suddenly attracted a wave of emails, WhatsApp, and Discord messages insisting the projectile had actually been intercepted, not landed. The push, he learned, was tied to a high-stakes Polymarket wager titled "Iran strikes Israel on...?" that would only pay out if an actual missile or drone strike hit Israeli soil and wasn't intercepted.
When Fabian refused to "correct" his story, the outreach escalated into fabricated screenshots, attempted third-party influence—including another journalist being offered a cut of someone's winnings if he could convince Fabian to change his report—and then explicit threats against his life and family sent over WhatsApp. Police are now investigating. Polymarket, meanwhile, has condemned the harassment, said it banned involved accounts, and pledged to cooperate with authorities. "The attempt by these gamblers to pressure me to change my reporting so that they would win their bet did not and will not succeed," Fabian writes. "But I do worry that other journalists may not be as ethical if they are promised some of the winnings." More here.
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