The BBC has defended its coverage of the Gaza conflict after the US administration criticised its reporting on a recent incident in the area that reportedly left several people dead.
Spokeswoman Carolyn Leavitt said the corporation, while updating the headline of the story with new information, was forced to “correct and remove” its reporting on the dead and wounded following the incident, which occurred near a humanitarian distribution center in Rafah.
The BBC said it had not removed its story and explained that headlines on the incident were “updated throughout the day to reflect the latest fatality figures from various sources”, which is “completely normal practice”.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Ms. Leavitt responded to a question about the incident and said: “The administration is aware of these reports and we are currently investigating their veracity because, unfortunately, unlike some in the media, we do not take Hamas' claims at face value.”
“We prefer to do our own investigation when they make claims, unlike the BBC, which had several headlines: 'Israeli tank kills 26', 'Israeli tank kills 21', 'Israeli shelling kills 31', 'Red Cross says aid incident kills 21'.
“And then, wait a minute, they had to correct and delete their story, saying, 'We looked at the footage and found no evidence of anything.'”
During her speech, Ms. Leavitt held up a document that appeared to be a post on the social media site X (formerly Twitter) with different headlines.
The person who posted the headlines also posted a screenshot from the BBC Live blog and wrote: “Admission that it was all a lie.”
The blog post's headline read: “The claim that the graphic video is linked to an aid distribution site in Gaza is incorrect.”
A BBC spokesman clarified that the information came from an online BBC Verify report, not from the corporation's story on the Rafah deaths, pointing out that the viral video posted on social media was not linked to the humanitarian distribution centre in question.
Ms. Leavitt added: “We are going to carefully examine reports before we confirm them from this podium or take any action, and I encourage journalists who truly care about the truth to do the same to reduce the amount of misinformation being spread around the world in this context.”
A BBC spokesman said: “The claim that the BBC removed the story after reviewing the footage
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
