Complaint
This article featured a child in Gaza whose emaciated state was presented as the result of malnutrition and dehydration. After publication, the BBC discovered that the child had a pre-existing condition (cerebral palsy) and rewrote the article to reflect this information, adding an explanatory note. A reader complained that the absence of the information from the article in its original form rendered it misleading, and that the omission was a further instance of consistent anti-Israeli bias by the BBC. The ECU considered the complaint in the light of the BBC’s editorial standards of accuracy and impartiality.
Outcome
The material for the article was gathered by a freelancer based in Gaza (the BBC, like most media, being prohibited from reporting there), and it appears he did not become aware that the child had a pre-existing condition until after filing his copy for the BBC. Although the pre-existing condition did not detract from the fact that the child showed clear signs of malnutrition and dehydration, the original article included wording which conveyed a misleading impression of the child’s condition before the outbreak of the conflict, and it fell short of the BBC’s standards of accuracy as a consequence. In the ECU’s view, the rewriting of the article, with the addition of an explanatory note (which took place about seven hours after its first appearance) sufficed to address the issue of accuracy. As the inaccuracy arose from the lack of relevant information in circumstances where the BBC was deprived of the usual means of investigation and verification, not from any intention to mislead, the ECU did not consider it to be evidence of bias.
Resolved