Problematic quotation of Israeli soldiers
The latest report about Israeli soldiers’ conduct in Gaza released by Israeli group Breaking The Silence was consumed by the media predictably fast. But in the haste to ‘get something out’ about its contents, how closely did journalists actually read the report? Misquotes in The Independent’s two-page spread and a BBC Online article raise concerns about the handling of this source material and whether audiences are being provided with the full facts. Because the report contains some contentious claims, it is vital that the media maintain high standards of accuracy when lifting quotations and reproducing them in their work.
The Independent
In Testimony 6, the interviewee said:
‘‘Then I finally understood. Most of the time we were firing at launcher crews in open spaces, but it didn't take much to aim at schools, hospitals and such. So I see I'm firing literally into a built-up area.’ (Our emphasis)
By the time it reached The Independent’s ‘Israeli soldiers reveal the brutal truth of Gaza attack’, it had been contracted to:
‘I finally understood. We were firing at launcher crews in open spaces. But it didn't take much to aim at schools, hospitals and such. So I see I'm firing literally into a built-up area.’
The phrase ‘Most of the time’, which provided a significant degree of context, has been omitted from the heart of the quote. The word ‘we’ has been wrongly capitalised and placed at the beginning of the sentence.
BBC
The BBC’s ‘Breaking silence on Gaza abuses’ also contained an inaccurate quotation. On the subject of the rules of engagement in Testimony 7, an interviewee said:
‘Fire power was insane. We went in and the booms were just mad. The minute we got to our starting line, we simply began to fire at suspect places. Also, it was still dark when we went in, we got there just before dawn. You see a house, a window, shoot at the window. You don't see a terrorist there? Fire at the window. It was real urban warfare. This is the difference between urban warfare and a limited confrontation. In urban warfare, anyone is your enemy. No innocents.’ (Our emphasis)
The BBC omitted the sentences, ‘Also, it was still dark when we went in, we got there just before dawn’ and ‘It was real urban warfare. This is the difference between urban warfare and a limited confrontation.’ These sentences also provided some context to the nature of the fighting from the interviewee’s perspective – in this case, that it was dark and that urban warfare is different from limited confrontations.
These inaccuracies raise genuine questions about how this journalism is researched, compiled and checked. It is standard practice when omitting material from a direct quotation to uses an ellipsis to signify to readers that something is missing. The fact that this has not occurred is worrying.
In both cases it is unclear who is responsible for the editing of quotations. Just Journalism has notified both The Independent and the BBC about these issues and is awaiting a response.
17 July 2009