BBC Watch prompts two BBC News website corrections

BBC audiences are told that the Jewish day of rest is Friday.

1) As recorded here last week, a report published on the BBC News website on May 10th claimed – supposedly quoting an Israeli news site – that in the Golan Heights vultures have allegedly been poisoned by farmers “whose herds are threatened by the birds”.

BBC Watch submitted a complaint pointing out that vultures are scavengers which do not threaten livestock and that the BBC had mistranslated the Hebrew language report which in fact referred to “predators” – in this case, mainly wolves.

The BBC acknowledged that error in its response to our complaint.

“Thank you for getting in touch about our article reporting that eight vultures on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights – about half the birds’ population there – have been poisoned to death, Israeli officials say (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-48232078).

You raise a fair point and we’ve since amended the penultimate paragraph to now explain that the herds are threatened by “predators”.”

The article was amended three days after its initial publication.

2) On May 16th the BBC News website posted a podcast produced by BBC Ouch and titled “The rising stars of Eurovision who pulled out of the final” on its ‘Middle East’ and ‘Entertainment & Arts’ pages. The synopsis to that report originally stated:

“The Shalva Band were favourites to represent host country Israel at Eurovision but pulled out when the dress rehearsal was scheduled for Friday – the Jewish holy day of rest.”

The following day BBC Watch wrote to the BBC News website and Tweeted BBC Ouch.

The synopsis was subsequently amended and now it reads:

“The Shalva Band were favourites to represent host country Israel at Eurovision but pulled out when the dress rehearsal was scheduled for Friday night – the start of the Jewish Sabbath, the holy day of rest.”

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BBC News website gets lost in (bad) translation

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