Yesterday, the Guardian upheld our complaint about an article in the outlet’s Australian edition falsely stating that all of the 60,000 Palestinians which the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry claims have been killed since the terror group’s massacre on Oct. 7th, 2023, were “civilians”.
Here’s the original sentence, in an article titled “Australia to recognise a Palestinian state at the UN next month“, Aug. 11, written by Tom McIlroy and Josh Butler:
As we noted in our email to the outlet, Hamas’s periodically updated Gaza death counts don’t distinguish between civilians and combatants, so it’s indefensible for their reporters to make such an assertion. Further, careful analyses of the most recent data suggests that nearly half of those killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, have been fighting aged men – those most likely to be combatants.
Here’s the revised Guardian language:
Editors added the following addendum, noting the correction:
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What a mealy-mouthed correction. They have no idea of the proportions so how do they know they’re ‘mostly’ civlians … ‘roughly half’ would be more accurate and honest. But the BBC has no intention of being accurate or honest