Tuesday, June 20, 2017

ISRAELI OFFICIAL ON BBC HEADLINE: ‘THESE MISTAKES HAPPEN WAY TOO OFTEN': While acknowledging the BBC's clarification of a badly misleading headline about the weekend terrorist attacks in Jerusalem, Foreign Ministry director-general Yuval Rotem warned BBC consumers to be aware, because these mistakes happen “way too often.” Following an outcry from everyone from the Foreign Ministry to USA President Donald Trump's son over an initial headline on Friday 16 June 2017 that read, “Three Palestinians killed after deadly stabbing in Jerusalem,” the news organization changed the headline to, “Israeli police woman stabbed to death in Jerusalem.” Rotem retweeted a tweet from the spokesman at the Israeli embassy that displayed the apology, and wrote this comment: “BBC World admits mistake, but such mistakes happen way too often. BBC consumers beware.”
Israel and its supporters have long complained about biased and misleading headlines on stories in the press abroad about terrorist attacks in Israel. For instance, in the attack at the Damascus Gate in Feb. 2016 that killed Hadar Cohen, the headline on the initial CBS story was “3 Palestinians killed as daily violence grinds on.” About 90 minutes later, and after numerous complaints, that headline was changed to this: “Israeli police kill 3 alleged Palestinian attackers.” And after further protests, it was again changed to “Palestinians kill Israeli officer, wound another before being killed.” And after last year's attack at the Sarona market in Tel Aviv that killed four people, CNN ran the following headline: “Two ‘Terrorists’ Captured,” putting the word terrorists in quotation marks. It later apologized, saying putting terrorists in quotation marks was “a mistake.” (Jerusalem Post) In the words of one blogger: “If they didn't flagrantly mislead they wouldn't have to be called out.” Pray against misleading media presentations against Israel that further bias and terrorism against the Jewish state.

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