Last week, we posted on X, tagging Sky News journalist Yalda Hakim about her April 11 interview with Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon, where she falsely claimed that the IDF had killed “300 civilians” in Lebanon over the past 48 hours.
As we noted in a post on April 13, even Al Jazeera and the pro-Hamas British site MEMO were clear that the death toll released by Lebanon’s Health Ministry (which, it should be noted, is run by a Hezbollah member) didn’t include a break-down of civilians and combatants.
The Sky journalist replied to our X post, acknowledging the error, while suggesting that no formal correction needed to be issued.
However, Ofcom, which regulates Sky News, is clear that “Significant mistakes in news should normally be acknowledged and corrected on air quickly”. The fact that Israel’s ambassador had the opportunity to respond to Hakim’s false claim doesn’t obviate Sky’s responsibility to report accurately, and set the record straight.
As such, we contacted Sky News requesting that they broadcast a timely on-air correction.
They responded thusly:
Thanks very much for taking the time to contact us regarding the recent interview with Danny Danon.
Viewer feedback is encouraged and valued as it helps us gauge how the content we provide is being received.
It’s worth noting that Yalda publicly explained that she misspoke and clarified that she meant “People”
I’ve taken your points on board and have logged these for the Sky News team. Thanks again for taking the time to contact Sky.
Yalda Hakim, of course, only “publicly explained” that she misspoke about “300 civilians” being killed, clarifying she meant to say “300 people”, in her reply to our X post – a reply that got 9,100 views according to X’s metrics.
The original clip on Hakim’s X account where she erred has so far received over 329,000 views, while the Sky News X account version received another 73,000 vies. The Sky News Facebook version of the interview received 133,000 views, and the YouTube version garnered 11,000 views.
We don’t know how many viewers watched the original live interview on Sky News, but the Sky programme itself, The World with Yalda Hakim, has an average of around 60,000 viewers per episode.
Sky’s decision not issue an on-air correction, and either remove or edit the various versions of Hakim’s misinformation on civilian deaths in Lebanon at the time mean that Sky views, and their social media followers, will continue to be grossly misled.
So, we’ll be taking this complaint to Ofcom, asking them – in line with the Due Impartiality and Accuracy clause of their code – require the network to set the record straight.
…
Update, April 26: Sky notified us that they did uphold our complaint, and issued an on-air correction.
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