Today: September 3, 2010

 

The Independent's Opinion as Fact

Posted: Mon 8th February 2010 2.43 PM  | Author: Just Journalism

On two occasions during the last week The Independent failed to distinguish between fact and opinion in its Middle East coverage as is required by the Press Complaints Commission Code of Conduct.

The Code clearly states under Section 1: Accuracy that: ‘The Press, whilst free to be partisan, must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.’

Both cases involved reporting by commentator Robert Fisk, whose editorialised pieces have been misrepresented to readers as news reporting many times in the past (30 Dec 2008, 17 July 2008, 29 Nov 2007, 6 Sep 2007, 18 Aug 2007, 14 Aug 2007).

Just Journalism has brought this to the attention of The Independent and is awaiting a response.

The first of the latest cases involved a double page spread which led the publication’s World News section on Saturday 30 January. The main article, ‘In the West Bank’s stony hills, Palestine is slowly dying’ is presented as news and the second article, ‘Why does the US turn a blind eye to Israeli bulldozers?’ – also authored by Fisk – is clearly labelled ‘Comment’. However, the style of the two pieces is indistinguishable. The first article is imbued with a tone critical of Israel and contains numerous instances of conjecture and comment.

For example, of demolition orders for the Palestinian village Jiftlik, Fisk writes:

‘it all looks like ethnic cleansing via bureaucracy. Perverse might be the word for the paperwork involved. Obscene appear to be the results.’

Later the author notes:

‘I came across an even more outrageous example of this apartheid-by-permit in the village of Zbeidat.’

This language clearly constitutes comment and not news reporting. As such, The Independent was obligated to distinguish the article as comment as it did with Fisk’s second article, ‘Why does the US turn a blind eye to Israeli bulldozers?’ By positioning both articles together in the World News section and labelling only one as comment, the false implication to readers was that ‘In the West Bank’s stony hills, Palestine is slowly dying’ was a news report.

Mocking tone and accusations of ‘slaughter’

Three days later on Tuesday 2 February, another double page spread leading The Independent’s News section failed again to identify Robert Fisk’s article as comment and not news. ‘Israel feels under siege. Like a victim. An underdog’ opens, ‘So the propaganda war is on.’ And continues by ironically calling on readers to ‘Forget’ a chronology of mass casualty events in Middle East history for which he holds Israel accountable. The least impartially expressed of these reads:

‘And forget, of course, the more than 1,300 Palestinians slaughtered by Israel in Gaza last year’.

Fisk accuses Israel of ‘slaughter’ on three further occasions in the article. Later, Fisk openly mocks Israeli concerns about accusations against its military:

‘Heaven forbid that Israeli officers should ever be accused of atrocities!’

Such expressions are simply not acceptable in articles being presented as news. The PCC Code is inherently clear on this issue. It calls on British publications to ‘distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact’ in order that readers are not misled. The Independent has clearly failed to do this.

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