The BBC has defended its reporting on the war in Gaza following criticism from the White House over its coverage of an incident in the territory that reportedly left several people dead.
Spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt said the corporation was forced to “correct and remove” its article about casualties and injuries, updating the headline with new information, following the incident near a humanitarian aid center in Rafah.
The BBC clarified that it had not removed its report, adding that headlines about the incident were “updated throughout the day to take into account the latest fatality figures from various sources”, which is “completely normal practice”.
At a news conference on Tuesday, Ms. Leavitt responded to a question about the incident, saying: “The administration is aware of these reports and we are currently investigating their veracity because, unfortunately, unlike some in the media, we do not accept Hamas' word at face value.”
“We prefer to look into it when they make statements, unlike the BBC, which used 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 entire story, saying, 'We looked at the footage and found no evidence.'”
During her testimony, 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 published 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 a corporate story about the Rafah casualties, adding that the viral video posted on social media was not linked to the aid distribution centre it claimed to show.
Ms Leavitt added: “We intend to fact-check reports before we confirm them from this platform or take any action, and I encourage journalists who are genuinely interested in the truth to do the same to reduce the amount of misinformation being spread around the world on this issue.”
A BBC spokesman said: “The claim that the BBC removed the story after reviewing the footage is completely untrue.
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
