A rocket attack from Gaza struck an Israeli house, injuring seven people, including two infants on Monday. The attack prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cut short a visit to the US and the IDF to launch retaliatory strikes on terror sites in the Strip. The rocket struck the community of Mishmeret, about 25 km from Tel Aviv, the longest distance Palestinians have fired a rocket since the 2014 war.
CNN changed an inappropriate headline in response to HonestReporting’s tweet. But what about other media outlets?
Here are a few examples of flawed coverage of the latest developments.
Headline fails
Headlines matter because people don’t read most articles; much of what people know about developments comes from skimming headlines in the papers and social media feeds.
Related reading: News Literacy: Why Headlines Matter
Australia’s ABC News got the story’s chronology right but the message entirely wrong in a headline misleading readers to believe that there was a non-existent cause and effect between two completely separate events.
Israel launched airstrikes on Hamas targets in response to a rocket attack, not as a result of US President Donald Trump signing a proclamation recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
UPDATE: In response to our request, ABC changed its headline to the following:
While it is as yet unclear if these latest events will ultimately lead to a significant IDF military operation, Israel has prudently moved some forces closer to the Gaza border. Not, however, according to the Irish Independent, which inexplicably placed Israeli soldiers inside the Strip.
UPDATE: In response to a request from HonestReporting, the Irish Independent updated its headline to the following:
Uncoordinated coordinates
The Irish Independent wasn’t the only paper to get its geography wrong. A report on Deutsche Welle‘s English website said this:
Mishmeret is less than 20 km northeast of Tel Aviv but it isn’t a “settlement” in the terminology widely used to denote Israeli communities over the 1967 Green Line.
It ought to go without saying that no Israeli community — whatever its location — deserves to be terrorized by rockets, shootings, stabbings, car-rammings, infiltrations or any other violence. Unfortunately, references to settlements are often either used as some sort of sick justification for terror or a blanket statement that all Israeli villages, towns and cities are illegitimate wherever they are.
We hope that Deutsche Welle’s error is just that and not a product of a more nefarious agenda.
UPDATE: Deutsche Welle amended its text in response to our correspondence, removing the word “settlement.”
The recycled video
At first glance, Newsweek‘s video accompanying its story shockingly omits any mention of the rocket attack on Mishmeret that led to Israel’s Gaza airstrikes.
Until one processes the dates on the subtitles:
October 27, 2018 was a previous flare up when Israel launched airstrikes in response to hundreds of rockets fired from Gaza. Recycling old newspapers may be environmentally friendly. Recycling old news isn’t. It’s misleading and fails to do justice to actual story that should be reported on.
UPDATE: Following the publication of this post, Newsweek has replaced the old video with up to date footage of Donald Trump.
* * *
We’ve contacted media outlets to request corrections and amendments. If you see other examples of faulty media coverage, let us know through our Red Alert page by clicking on the button below.
