American author and political expert Naomi Wolf has hit back at news outlets, accusing them of ‘distorting’ her comments about ISIL beheading videos.

In a Facebook post addressed to “some news outlets”, Wolf defends a series of social media posts in which she called for journalistic verification of the videos.

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“I am not asserting that the ISIS videos have been staged,” Wolf wrote, directing her comments specifically at “the Sydney Morning Herald, Talking Points Memo and the Guardian”.

“No one can yet know anything for sure about the ISIS videos as they have simply not been independently analyzed, according to the news outlets which we have contacted for more information about the verification process.

“I am simply reporting what we have had confirmed by public editors of several newspapers: the fact that the videos have only one source and have not been independently verified.”

The former political consultant also apologised for the wording of one of her posts, in which she implied that the violent videos had been “staged”.

“I certainly sincerely apologize if one of my posts was insensitively worded. I have taken that one down. But that does not mean I don’t stand by the need for all journalists to have two independent sources confirming a major story before they release it as confirmed,” Wolf wrote.

Wolf asserted that her questioning of the recently released videos was inspired by America’s 2003 invasion of Iraq.

“Because American reporters and editors did not check on a news stream full of assertions that turned out to be straight-out false … we rushed to war,” Wolf said.

The author, who wrote the 1990 book The Beauty Myth, has more than 94,000 followers on Facebook and has recently been using her influence to question the authenticity of several media stories.

In particular, she has recently focused her efforts on the Scottish referendum, calling for a review into the accuracy of the voting system.