Partial amendment to BBC News website headline

Partial amendment to BBC News website headline

Just Journalism recently contacted the news desk of the BBC News website about a contentious headline accompanying a breaking news story. ‘Palestinian killed in demolition’ gave the erroneous impression that a Palestinian had been killed in the process of an Israeli demolition. In fact, Israeli police had shot the man in self-defence after he attacked them by driving his vehicle at them. There was a clear mismatch between the headline and the facts.

Following our intervention, the journalist acknowledged the inaccurate headline and agreed to change it. Within minutes a new headline appeared: ‘Police kill Palestinian motorist’. Whilst this cleared up the issue of the demolition having no connection to the death, it still implied that Israeli police carried out a wrongful killing of a Palestinian.

In addition, the original story was illustrated by a bulldozer which had in fact been used in a terror attack against Israelis in Jerusalem in July 2008. This was replaced with a picture of a mechanical jaw demolishing a house. This substitution, like that of the headline, did not go far towards giving an accurate picture of events.