Previously we noted that on August 30th the BBC News website portrayed a member of Hamas’ al Qassam brigades who had been filmed holding a grenade while participating in violent rioting at the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel merely as “a 32-year-old man”.
BBC NEWS DESCRIBES HAMAS TERRORIST PICTURED WITH GRENADE AS ‘A MAN’
CAMERA UK submitted a complaint to the BBC concerning that serious omission on August 31st. On September 8th we were informed that it would take the BBC more time to address that very straightforward issue. On September 20th we received the following response:
“Thank you for getting in touch about our article Palestinian President Abbas holds rare talks with Israeli minister and please accept our apologies for the delay in our response.
We have added this information, along with an update note advising readers of the change.”
The relevant section of that report now reads as follows:
The footnote appended to the report reads:
The continued absence of a dedicated corrections page on the BBC News website of course means that few, if any, of the readers of that article in the first 19 days after its publication are likely to discover that it failed to provide them with that highly relevant information.
BBC have still strayed from proper description. The ‘man’ who was shot was a terrorist acting on behalf of a proscribed terrorist organisation, and as such should have been described. A speaker on behalf of a pressure group is too described as a ‘militant’. A lot of difference between the two.