On the evening of October 1st the BBC News website published a short report headlined “Several killed in mass shooting in Tel Aviv”.
In the hours that followed, that report was updated as more information became available and it now appears online with the title “Seven killed in shooting and knife attack in Tel Aviv” and is credited to Maia Davies.
That latest version of the report – i.e. the one which will remain online as “permanent public record” – also includes mentions of the words terror, terror attack and terrorist solely in the form of quotes from the authorities and witnesses as stipulated in BBC editorial guidelines. [emphasis added]
“Seven people have been killed in a shooting and knife attack in Tel Aviv, police in Israel have confirmed.
Several others were injured – some seriously – when a gunman opened fire at members of the public in the Jaffa area.
The deadly attack began in a rail carriage and continued on the platform, local police said in a statement.
Footage posted on social media showed motionless bodies strewn on the street.
Police said the gunman and another attacker armed with a knife were “neutralised” by members of the public, and described the motive as “terror”.”
The report has not been updated to provide identification of the seven victims (including two foreign nationals) of what the BBC refuses to describe as a terror attack in its own words.
The report tells readers that:
“The identities of the perpetrators have not been released.”
In fact, the perpetrators were identified within hours of the attack:
“The two terrorists were identified as Mohammed Mesek, 19, and Ahmad Himouni, 25, both Palestinian residents of the West Bank, who were in Israel proper without a permit.”
The report has also not been updated to inform BBC audiences that the following day – October 2nd – Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
“Hamas takes responsibility for the deadly terror attack in Jaffa last night, which left seven people dead and another 16 wounded.
Hamas says the two terrorists who carried out the attack, Mohammad Mesek and Ahmed Himouni from Hebron, are members of the terror group.
Six of the seven victims have been named as Revital Bronstein, 24, Ilia Nozadze, 42, Shahar Goldman, 30, Inbar Segev Vigder, 33, Nadia Sokolenco, 40, and Jonas Chrosis, 26.”
That omission is all the more remarkable given the following entry on the BBC News website’s live page on October 2nd which links to Davies’ report:
A BBC guidance document tell us that:
“The Editorial Guidelines state, “The archive of the BBC’s online content is a permanent public record and its existence is in the public interest. The online archive particularly news reports, should not normally be removed or amended.” To do so risks erasing the past and altering history.”
However, the BBC’s “permanent public record” account of the serious terror attack on the evening of October 1st in Jaffa fails to provide the names and personal details of the victims, fails to name the perpetrators and to identify them as members of the Hamas terrorist organisation and fails to clarify in the BBC’s own words that the incident was an act of terror against civilians.
Removing or amending content is of course not the only way of “altering history”: the failure to report a story fully and accurately at the time has exactly the same effect.
