On November 5, CBC.ca prominently published the following misleading photograph of a dead Palestinian “militant” being carried on a stretcher in the Gaza Strip:
The photo accompanied an unrelated article featuring allegations made by Canadian flotilla provocateurs that Israel had, they claim, “roughed” them up when Israeli forces interdicted their vessel while enforcing a legal maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip.
The photo and article depicted two entirely different events. The photograph showed a dead Palestinian “militant” on a stretcher after an Israeli airstrike, while the article described how the flotilla "activists" had alleged that they were abused. An allegation which Israeli authorities vehemently deny. This juxtaposition was entirely misleading for the reader who when looking at the photo, naturally assumed they were looking at a dead or injured flotilla "activist". Substituting a dead Palestinian “militant” to tell the story of an allegedly roughed up flotilla "activist" is wholly inappropriate, misleading and inaccurate. In addition to the fact that many readers do not bother reading captions, the claims of the flotilla "activists" are alleged, and not proven, certainly not with these photos. Yet, this was unclear to the reader.
Furthermore, there was no context given in this photo caption to take into account that the ”militant” was killed as he was preparing to fire rockets into Israel.
HonestReporting Canada brought our concerns to the attention of CBC.ca Managing Editor Marissa Nelson who concurred with our assessment and promptly removed the photo.
In correspondence with HonestReporting Canada, Ms. Nelson noted that “While the caption for the photo was correct, I agree that a reader who hadn’t read the caption carefully could misunderstand what it was depicting. We have consequently removed the photo.”
We thank Ms. Nelson and the CBC for professionally dealing with this matter and for deleting this biased photo from their website. Here is how the article looks now:
