Earlier this month we discussed the misleading nature of a BBC News website headline – which was also promoted on social media – stating “Nearly 70% of Gaza war dead are women and children, UN says”.
SENSATIONALIST BBC ‘GAZA WAR DEAD’ HEADLINE MISLEADS AUDIENCES
CAMERA UK submitted a complaint to the BBC in which we pointed our that:
“That headline is erroneous and misleading to audiences. The claim it promotes is not supported by the UN report in question or by the text of the article itself, which clarifies that the 70% claim refers only to less than 19% of the 43,300 “Gaza war dead” claimed by the Hamas terrorist organisation which started the war and relates to a specific time period. […]
It is therefore necessary to amend the headline in order to make clear that the UN findings on the percentage of women and children killed in Gaza apply only to verified fatalities in an early six months of the war.”
On November 20th we were informed that it would take more time to address our complaint and on November 22nd we received the following communication:
“I am one of the journalists on the BBC News website and I deal with complaints.
I am sorry you are unhappy about the article: Nearly 70% of Gaza war dead verified by UN are women and children.
Thank you for pointing out your concerns about the original headline: “Nearly 70% of Gaza war dead are women and children UN says”
The article makes clear that these are the figures, over a six-month period, which have been verified by the UN. The top line of the story reads: “The UN’s Human Rights Office has condemned the high number of civilians killed in the war in Gaza, saying its analysis shows close to 70% of verified victims over a six-month period were women and children” and goes on to state: “The UN agency said it verified the details of 8,119 people killed in Gaza from November 2023 to April 2024.
Its analysis found around 44% of verified victims were children and 26% women. The ages most represented among the dead were five to nine-year-olds”.
The caption also reads: “About 44% of verified victims were children and 26% women, the UN said”.
Headlines are not designed to be read in isolation and we believe readers will look at the headline in conjunction with the story.
However, I discussed your concerns with senior editors and I can confirm that the headline has now been amended to read: “Nearly 70% of Gaza war dead verified by UN are women and children”.
I am sorry you had cause to complain on this occasion. However, we always welcome the opportunity to review our content, so thank you again for bringing this to our attention.”
While headlines may not be “designed to be read in isolation”, the fact is that more often than not, they are.
“According to a study conducted by Columbia University computer scientists, 59% of links shared on social media have never actually been clicked. People (or bots) just read the headline and share with-out reading a single word of text.”
Another study shows that the same applies to online reports:
“Recent data from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism show only 51% of consumers who “read” an online news story actually read the whole article, while 26% read part, and 22% looked at just the headline or a few lines.”
In other words, the BBC is deceiving itself if it really believes that the accuracy of headlines is a minor issue.
The headline amended two weeks after the appearance of this report now reads as follows but the Tweet promoting the original headline – with 17.5 million views to date – remains online:
