Complaint
A reader of the BBC’s live online coverage of the International Court of Justice ruling of 26 January 2024 complained that one posting had been inaccurate in reporting the judge as saying “Israel must desist from killing, injuring, destroying life and preventing births in relation to Palestinians”, giving the misleading impression that the Court had inculpated Israel of such actions. The ECU considered the complaint in the light of the BBC’s editorial standards of accuracy.
Outcome
The ECU accepted that the posting was not an accurate reflection of what the judge had said, which was limited to future actions by Israel. It considered that, while subsequent and accurate accounts significantly reduced the risk of readers misunderstanding the judgement, they did not correct the original misleading impression. Independently of the ECU’s involvement, BBC News added the following correction:
An earlier version of this post contained the sentence “She says Israel must desist from killing, injuring, destroying life and preventing birth in relation to Palestinians.” This was changed to “The judge says Israel must take all measures to prevent killing, injuring, destroying life and preventing births in relation to Palestinians.” to reflect the judge’s specific words in her ruling.
Ordinarily, a correction of this kind would enable the ECU to find the issue of complaint had been resolved. In this instance, however, because of delay in processing the complaint, the correction was made more than a year after the original posting. In view of the length of time the error had lain uncorrected, the ECU judged that the complaint should be upheld.
Upheld
Further action
The finding was reported to the management of BBC News and discussed with the relevant editorial staff.