On October 14, HonestReporting addressed a serious problem with a report broadcast on NPR. Emily Harris interviewed the father of a Palestinian teenage terrorist shot dead after stabbing and wounding two Israelis in Jerusalem.
When asked as to what motivated his son to carry out such an act, the father stated that it was anger at a video of a female Palestinian terrorist being shot dead by Israelis. However, Harris then interviewed the family of the woman in the video, who was actually alive and in Israeli custody. We took NPR to task for broadcasting the claim that she was dead without making it clear that this was patently false.
HonestReporting’s readers evidently complained en masse to NPR’s ombudsman Elizabeth Jensen who responded in a column on NPR’s website:
This week’s email brought a large number of complaints about Emily Harris’s Oct. 13 All Things Considered report in which she interviewed the families of two Palestinian teenagers who were accused of attacking Israelis. Many of the emails appeared to have been sparked by this article from the organization HonestReporting, whose mission is “Defending Israel From Media Bias.”
Many emailers referenced in particular the interview with Qassam Badran, whose son was accused of stabbing “two Israeli civilians as they walked near Jerusalem’s Old City,” according to the story. Israeli police later killed the son.
In the interview, Badran (speaking through an interpreter) made a misstatement. As a clarification added to NPR’s report notes:
In this report, a Palestinian father is quoted saying his son was angry about a video showing a Palestinian woman who was accused of attacking an Israeli and was killed by Israeli police. In fact, as we reported later in the story, the woman was not killed. She was injured and is in Israeli custody.
New York listener Yael Schlenger, expressing a sentiment of many, wrote to my office: “I am appalled at the poor journalism and lack of journalistic integrity that Emily Harris shows in this piece. She accepted a completely false narrative that she then actually proves false herself when she does not challenge the fact that the female who was wounded after she stabbed someone did not in fact die.”
Editors in the newsroom told me the mistake was not Harris’s. Larry Kaplow, NPR’s international editor for the Middle East, said the father’s misstatement was noticed in advance, during editing. Kaplow said he intended to have a producer remove the misstatement from the report’s audio, so there would not be any confusion for listeners, but he forgot to have the voice-over (the English translation from Arabic) corrected. As the clarification notes, Harris was well aware—and reported—that the woman was alive.
You can read the rest of Jensen’s column here.
We appreciate that NPR acknowledged the error and made a clarification. Out of all international news, nothing causes as much sensitivity as coverage of Israel and the Mideast conflict. It is therefore incumbent upon NPR and other media to avoid making such serious errors.
Thank you to our readers and subscribers for taking action and holding NPR to account. While one person may not make a difference, together thousands can.
[sc:bottomsignup ]
18 Comments
Skewed reporting is like gossips. Once published is like feathers strewn from a building top impossible to be retrieved again. Trash journalism has no place but the trash can.
A weak apology. The use of quotes around Honest Reporting’s mission, is an example of attempted delegitimizing. NPR is a mouthpiece for the Left, and I don’t listen to its news broadcasts for that reason. It has shown thru subtle and not so subtle twists of language and tone to be biased against Israel (a bias that is by definition anti-Jew), and pro-PLO. Their is never a “freedom fighter” they don’t support, unless of course we are talking about Israelis defending the freedom of their citizens to live in peace.
I don’t accept NPR’s weak apology. They are not taking responsibility for the full impact of their actions. As their own story revealed, the death of Palestinians is inciting terrorists. Their false reporting on the death of a Palestinian girl that is in reality alive could very well incite the next terror attack.
Yes, he forgot to edit the piece, I do not believe them. They always find lame excuses to cover their bias. They have become the propaganda win for the islamo-fascists, I mean they have been the propaganda wing for the islamo-fascists for decades. They all have blood in their hands, jewish blood. They are no better than the like of Goebbels and CIe, using the same playbook, article by article and at the end always blaming the jews. I hope history will remember their names, one by one, so they can be written on the wall of shame !!!
Once is an accident, a trend is evidence. Apology not accepted.
this eternal misreporting to cause problems, is basically a “load of crap” all supporters of the “interfarter”.
they should have let the father say it and then right away show what a liar he was
Too bad corrections never get the coverage the mistaken reporting did. Clarifications are worthless unless posted at the top of their web pages in large bold letters, as well as on all their tv and radio outlets, at the top of each broadcast, for 3 days, at least…..
Wait! What?! They intendend to change the voice over? So rather than showing that they are murdering us, justifying it, and inflaming themselves with false accusations, but the newspaper wanted to cover that up? Is that an apology and if so to whom?
I received a letter from the BBC complaint dept. justifying its position and rationalizing that the BBC is impartial reporting. Thank you HR for the work that you do.
Given how sensative this topic is I would expect that NPR would be a lot more careful. It is obvious to me that this is merely an excuse. NPR says whatever they feel like. Organizations like NPR disgust me. NPR is like CBC in Canada they have an agenda, they are bias and don’t have any need for actual facts or the truth and never have or will. If all that is required is an apology to make amends they will continue to spout lies and hatred. What is needed is real penalties, removal of funding, legal action or something that will make them think twice and act responsibly. A BS apology shouldn’t have to come through an Ombudsman. I love what you guys do and thank G-d you do it. I will be happy to help in any way I can.
Psychologists and psychological experiments confirm that no matter the “correction”, the person will remember the incorrect information 6 months later.
Psychologists and psychological experiments confirm that no matter the “correction”, the person will remember the incorrect informationwards the Palestinian “killed” since the headline omits, “engaged in the act of murder”.
Yair Lapid wrote a strong article in the Jewish Chronicle (and Jerusalem Post) castigating British media for their biased and unprofessional journalism. The BBC’s reporting is even more outrageous than usual such that Lord Michael Grade, formerly of the BBC, has written a formal complaint.
Naturally, nothing will be done. The 2006 Balen Report which found guilty the BBC’s misreporting and anti-Israel bias led to the BBC spending hundred of thousands of pounds of British tax payers money on refusing to make public the report. Jeremy Bowen, Orla Guerin (married toa Palestinian and caught deceiving the viewers), Tim Donnison (tweeting lies and phots of Syrian children) et al are all cut from the same cloth.
The Guardian and the Independent are no better and the rest are sloppy in that rather than investigate, they merely copy the story from other media sources. In other words, it is rare that a paper/news media actually engage in substantiating the claims made. Thus, Pallywood stories gain traction and Israel is regularly slandered and libelled.
And NPR is begging for donations this week? I’m not going to even listen to their Islmist Biased BS anymore!
They’re making progress. NPR’s boilerplate response used to be along the lines of, “We’ve had our Middle East coverage evaluated by someone who used to cover the Middle East for us, and he says we’re doing fine.”
would anybody beieve statement ..but he forgot.. ????
such a nonsence, NPR didn’t even bother to “invent” better excuse
This is no lack of journalistic integrity.
This is blatant anti-Semitism.
I am glad that the NPR realized its misake and I hope it corrects them in the future.