2012 Dishonest Reporting Awards 

 

December 17, 2012 15:05 by Pesach Benson Photo Editors Asleep At the Wheel Award: SABC
The status of African migrants in Israel was certainly contentious in 2012. So when South African Broadcasting Corp. News searched for a photo to illustrate one such update, the obvious image of choice taken from the wires should’ve been one of the plentiful images of the Africans themselves, or of Israeli protesters.

Instead, the SABC chose an image that  A) featured a monkey B) labeled as Jewish C) on a placard calling Israel a terrorist state D) at an Indonesian protest for the Mavi Marmara E) two years ago. The photo was not only irrelevant, it was anti-Semitic too.

SABC removed the photo, replacing it with map equally useless to the story.

Biggest Twit (USA): Anthony De Rosa, Reuters

During the Gaza war, Anthony De Rosa of Reuters took a swipe at at Israel on Twitter. The twitterverse reaction was massive and furious. One response in particular, by Robbie Guy even went viral. De Rosa — the news service’s social media editor — removed the tweet. But the memorable exchange was preserved in screengrabs.

Biggest Twit (UK): Jon Donnison, BBC

Early into the Operation of Pillar of Defense, Palestinian journalist/activist Hazem Balousha tweeted a moving photo of a girl lying in a hospital gurney, purportedly injured in an Israeli air strike.
BBC reporter Jon Donnison was touched and retweeted it. However, activists discovered that the photo was actually taken in Syria a month before the war. Donnison tweeted an apology for not carefully verifying the image before sharing it. After the war, at a formal Government Press Office hearing, Donnison was given a warning, while HonestReporting made him the first inductee in the Media War Hall of Shame.

And what of Balousha? Two days after Donnison’s apology, Balousha co-authored a Deutsche Welle article about the social media war. He gallingly addressed false photo tweets without disclosing he did the very same thing:

False information about the current war is also being spread via Twitter and Facebook – pictures of dead children, for example, that are actually from Syria. That angers Ebaa. “We have to stick to the truth, or no one is going to believe us any more.” Ulla Papajak also believes that pictures and information need to be verified for accuracy – even if he also understands that there is no time to do so.

Biggest Twit (UN): Khulood Badawi, OCHA
Khulood Badawi, an Israeli Arab foreshadowed Donnison’s screw-up when Israel launched air strikes on Gaza in March. She posted this photo:

Badawi’s tweet set in motion this chain of events:

1. Bloggers discovered the photo originated in 2006.
2. HonestReporting discovered that Badawi was an information and media coordinator for a UN agency, the Jerusalem-based Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
3. Israel’s ambassador to the UN demanded Badawi’s dismissal.
4.  The UN launched an inquiry.
5. HonestReporting delivered a petition to OCHA — with 15,000 signatures —  calling for Badawi’s removal.
6. The UN completed its probe, but didn’t release its findings.

Badawi and OCHA remained silent, so it’s not known how she came to post that image, or her current UN status. Badawi may have ended the chapter where it all began by closing her Twitter account.