On the same day (March 27) as the BBC used an incorrect photo (one taken in
Iraq, 2003) to illustrate breaking news of the Houla massacre in Syria, the
error was reported by competing news sources and
retracted by the BBC itself: We were aware of this image being
widely circulated on the internet in the early hours of this morning following
the most recent atrocities in Syria. We used it with a clear disclaimer
saying it could not be independently verified. Efforts were made overnight
to track down the original source of the image and when it was established the
picture was inaccurate we removed it immediately.
While this
mistake raises a question about the fact-checking done by BBC, similar mistakes have occurred at
other news sources. The obscure news source (a Wordpress blog) to which parent
post linked attempts to have this mistake stand for a type of bias, but no
arguable evidence is cited.
--- "Prolog is an efficient programming
language because it is a very stupid theorem prover." -- Richard O'Keefe [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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