To down­load the SBS offi­cial response in PDF for­mat, click here.

The SBS upheld the ECA­J’s com­plaint on SBS Arabic24 ‘Correspondent’s View’ & Arabic24 Online Head­line.

The ECAJ laid a com­plaint about the fol­low­ing sto­ry on SBS radio and online: https://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/arabic/en/audiotrack/ramallah-israeli-settlers-storm-al-aqsa-mosque.

As the head­line indi­cates, this news sto­ry false­ly claimed that “Israeli set­tlers” had “stormed” the Al-Aqsa mosque on June 2.  In fact, Jews around the world were cel­e­brat­ing “Jerusalem Day”, the anniver­sary of the uni­fi­ca­tion of the city in 1967.  The group were not “Israeli set­tlers” but Jew­ish vis­i­tors under police super­vi­sion. They did not enter the al Aqsa mosque at all, let alone “storm” it.  They peace­ful­ly entered the Tem­ple Mount area as per­mit­ted by the sta­tus quo agree­ment which allows for non-Mus­lim vis­i­tors at set vis­it­ing times.  Sub­se­quent­ly, some Pales­tini­ans ini­ti­at­ed a riot after being incit­ed by false sto­ries that the mosque had been “stormed”.

Oth­er media which car­ried that false sto­ry have cor­rect­ed it: https://honestreporting.com/fanatic-jews-storm-al-aqsa-mosque-photo-captions/.

Under SBS Code of prac­tice 2.2, SBS is sim­i­lar­ly oblig­ed to take rea­son­able steps to ensure the time­ly cor­rec­tion of sig­nif­i­cant errors of fact. The cor­rec­tion should not only be done online but should also be broad­cast in Ara­bic on the same radio pro­gram, with an apol­o­gy.

The SBS has acknowl­edged and apol­o­gised for two errors, and pro­vid­ed the fol­low­ing response:

I have com­plet­ed an inves­ti­ga­tion of the ‘Correspondent’s View’ seg­ment from Ramal­lah on SBS Arabic24 radio on 3 June, and the head­line and pho­to­graph accom­pa­ny­ing that con­tent on the Arabic24 web­site. The con­tent was assessed against Code 2.2 (News and Cur­rent Affairs – Accu­ra­cy, Impar­tial­i­ty and Bal­ance) of the SBS Codes of Prac­tice, in light of your com­plaint that “this news sto­ry false­ly claimed that ‘Israeli set­tlers’ had ‘stormed’ the Al-Aqsa mosque on June 2.”

For the rea­sons pro­vid­ed below, the con­tent was found to have breached the code require­ments for accu­ra­cy, in rela­tion to the use of the word “set­tlers” in the radio seg­ment and online, and the use of the word “storm” on the Arabic24 web­site.

Com­ments in rela­tion to the use of the word “storm” in the online head­line

The word “storm” was con­tained in a head­line on a web­page of the Arabic24 web­site pub­lished on 3 June which stat­ed “Ramal­lah: Israeli set­tlers storm Al-Aqsa mosque.” This head­line was an unat­trib­uted quote from an AFP Ara­bic report which was the source of the sto­ry by SBS Arabic24 on 3 June. A copy of the AFP Ara­bic report is attached to this email. The Eng­lish trans­la­tion of that quote is:

The direc­tor of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Omar al-Kiswani, said that about 1,200 “set­tlers broke [storm] into the mosque.

Under the code there is no oblig­a­tion for a lan­guage pro­gram web­site which car­ries no SBS News iden­ti­fi­ca­tion to meet the oblig­a­tions of Code 2.2. How­ev­er the web­page car­ries the embed­ded pod­cast of the ‘Correspondent’s View’ seg­ment, which is cur­rent affairs con­tent, and as it was first pub­lished on the morn­ing after the event I have applied Code 2.2, the accu­ra­cy pro­vi­sions of which state:

SBS is com­mit­ted to achiev­ing the high­est stan­dard of news and cur­rent affairs pre­sen­ta­tion. To this end, rea­son­able effort must be made to ensure that the fac­tu­al con­tent of news and cur­rent affairs pro­grams is accu­rate, hav­ing regard to the cir­cum­stances, and facts known, at the time of prepar­ing and broad­cast­ing or pub­lish­ing the con­tent.

The head­line that con­cerned you is accom­pa­nied by a pho­to on the Arabic24 web­page show­ing Israeli nation­al­ists walk­ing past the Al-Aqsa mosque. The cap­tion to the pho­to states “Israelis walk by the Dome of the Rock Mosque in the Al-Aqsa Mosque com­pound in Jerusalem’s old city” and this pro­vid­ed some con­text to the report­ing of the event. Nev­er­the­less, the unsourced and unqual­i­fied head­line failed to meet the accu­ra­cy pro­vi­sions of Code 2.2.

Con­sid­er­ing the cir­cum­stances on the day, if the pro­gram want­ed to use this quote it need­ed to be attrib­uted. The quote appar­ent­ly referred to the psy­cho­log­i­cal effect of the Jerusalem Day march on the Mus­lim wor­ship­pers at the Al-Aqsa mosque, and not to the con­duct of the Israeli marchers. The SBS World News bul­letin of 3 June car­ried an inter­view with the Al-Aqsa Mosque Direc­tor, Omar al- Kiswani, who said in rela­tion to the march:

They car­ried out a provoca­tive tour, they sang and laid on the ground, those acts trig­ger emo­tion­al respons­es from Mus­lims around the world.

This reac­tion was sim­i­lar­ly reflect­ed on 2 June in the Haaretz news­pa­per when it report­ed that:

Jor­dan’s Min­is­ter of Islam­ic Affairs and Holy Sites, Abdul Nass­er Musa Abu Al Basal, issued a state­ment con­demn­ing Israel’s “aggres­sion against those at prayer,” say­ing it negat­ed inter­na­tion­al law and eti­quette.

The need for attri­bu­tion was increased as the Ara­bic phrase “aiq­ta­hamuu almasjid” has two inter­change­able mean­ings either “break into” or “storm.” In the absence of such attri­bu­tion the quote would have been under­stood lit­er­al­ly. The marchers did not lit­er­al­ly storm the mosque as the pho­to­graph on the web­site shows.

Com­ments in rela­tion to the accu­ra­cy of the word “set­tlers”

From reports in the Israeli media the marchers appear to have been com­prised of a vari­ety of Israelis, not all of whom would be set­tlers.

SBS News online used the head­line “Israeli Nation­al­ists Mark Jerusalem Day” to described the event, and SBS World News described the marchers as “ultra-nation­al­ists.”

A NAATI accred­it­ed trans­la­tion of the ‘Correspondent’s View’ report from Ramal­lah on 3 June was obtained. It shows that the term “set­tlers” was used once by the SBS jour­nal­ist and four times by the Ramal­lah cor­re­spon­dent to refer to the marchers.

This ref­er­ence to “set­tlers” was how the marchers were described by the Arab news media on the day, includ­ing by Al Jazeera. How­ev­er, for the rea­sons pro­vid­ed above, such a ref­er­ence to the marchers was inac­cu­rate. The Israelis marched to com­mem­o­rate the reuni­fi­ca­tion of Jerusalem in 1967 and were accu­rate­ly described by SBS World News and SBS News online as “nation­al­ists.”

SBS apol­o­gis­es for this breach of the code.

The Direc­tor of Audio and Lan­guage Ser­vices, Man­di Wicks, has remind­ed the Ara­bic Lan­guage Pro­gram of the need for accu­ra­cy in report­ing, and for attri­bu­tion in cir­cum­stances where a per­son of stand­ing is pro­vid­ing their analy­sis of events.

The con­tent has been removed from the SBS Arabic24 web­site.

If you con­sid­er this response to be inad­e­quate in rela­tion to the ‘Correspondent’s View’ seg­ment, then you are enti­tled to take your con­cerns to the Aus­tralian Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Media Author­i­ty. SBS appre­ci­ates you tak­ing the time to make your con­cerns known to us and is pleased to have had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to respond to them.

Con­tact
Peter Wertheim AM | co-CEO
ph: 02 8353 8500 | m: 0408 160 904 | fax 02 9361 5888
e: pwertheim@ecaj.org.au | www.ecaj.org.au