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Washington and Tel Aviv: The Guardian Refers to Two Capitals?

UPDATE Following correspondence with The Guardian, the story has been amended so that it now refers to “Washington and Israel.” Of all the media outlets to commit the error of implying Tel Aviv as…

Simon Plosker
February 6, 2017
12:00 am

Reading time: 2 minutes

UPDATE

Following correspondence with The Guardian, the story has been amended so that it now refers to “Washington and Israel.”

Of all the media outlets to commit the error of implying Tel Aviv as Israel’s capital, The Guardian should be the most sensitive to this. To recall, in 2012, HonestReporting took successful legal action against The Guardian and the now-defunct UK Press Complaints Commission to force the newspaper to amend its policy of referring to Tel Aviv as the Israeli capital city.

So it’s extremely disappointing that the following paragraph appears in The Guardian’s story “Benjamin Netanyahu to press Theresa May for tougher line on Iran“:

Given that Washington DC is the US capital, this sentence clearly implies that Tel Aviv is Israel’s capital.

We’ve contacted The Guardian to request a correction. Watch this space.

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Tags: capital, distorted facts, Jerusalem, success, Tel Aviv, The Guardian

Simon Plosker

With over two decades of experience in various non-governmental organizations in the UK and Israel, Simon Plosker returned to HonestReporting in October 2022 as Editorial Director having previously been part of the organization’s management team from 2005 to 2020. Prior to his first spell at HonestReporting, Simon worked in Israel for NGO Monitor, BICOM, and served for a short period in the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit. He was Managing Editor of the Geneva-based NGO United Nations Watch for two years before moving back to the frontline defending Israel from media bias. Simon has a BSoc.Sc in International Studies and Political Science from the University of Birmingham and an MSc in History of International Relations from the London School of Economics. He immigrated to Israel in 2001 from London.

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