Written evidence submitted by Simon Plosker, Managing Editor of HonestReporting

1. HonestReporting[1] monitors the news for bias, inaccuracy, or other breach of journalistic standards in coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It also facilitates accurate reporting for foreign journalists covering the region. HonestReporting is not aligned with any government or political party or movement.

1.2   HonestReporting believes that a fully informed public is essential to progress and understanding in conflict resolution. It is not enough to correct inaccurate reporting and expose breaches of journalistic ethics. HonestReporting, through its MediaCentral[2] project, provides support services for journalists based in or visiting Israel, the Palestinian territories, and the region to insure the free flow of information.

1.3   HonestReporting’s work serves the public interest by fighting misinformation. At the same time, it provides agenda-free services to reporters, including translation services and access to news makers to enable them to provide a fuller picture of the situation. HonestReporting has over 140,000 subscribers and its MediaCentral project handles over 1,000 inquiries from journalists each year.

2. The purpose of this submission is to demonstrate using some examples of media coverage of Israel, how fake news can be propagated for malicious purposes and multiplied by mainstream media outlets failing to carry out due diligence before publishing stories that are ultimately exposed as fake.

2.2   When dealing with media coverage of Israel, it is important to differentiate fake news from genuine news reports or opinion pieces that one finds disagreeable. It must be stressed that there is nothing untoward about legitimate criticism of Israel or any other country.

2.3   Media bias and inaccuracies are an inevitability and media outlets must be held to accepted journalistic and editorial standards, including the IPSO Editors’ Code of Practice[3] and the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines[4].

2.4   Fake news is usually, in our experience, deployed in a malicious way. While the source of the fake news may intend to cause harm, in this case, to the State of Israel, the damage is all the greater when such content finds its way into mainstream news outlets or media outlets that claim to be credible and mainstream.

Here we present two short case studies of fake news stories that were generated by unreliable or agenda-driven sources, yet were published to a wider audience.

3. GAZA FLOOD LIBEL[5]: In February 2015, a story appeared in numerous media outlets including the Daily Mail, Al Jazeera, AFP and RT claiming that Israel had deliberately opened its southern dams leading to severe flooding in Gaza.

This story was based on claims by Palestinian officials. However, the entire charge was quickly proven to be false as there simply were no dams in the south of Israel. The different reactions of media outlets when confronted with the truth demonstrate how demonstrably fake news is still given credibility even when it has been debunked.

3.2   Al Jazeera[6] to its credit retracted its entire story and issued a correction:

3.3   RT[7], in sharp contrast updated its original story to include the following:

““The [Israeli] army opened the floodgates of a canal leading to central Gaza, which resulted in the removal of sand mounds along the border with Israel,” the CDD announced, according to Palestinian News Agency WAFA.

“Opening the levees to the canal has led to the flooding of several Palestinian homes, and we had to quickly evacuate the afflicted citizens.”

No casualties were reported as a result, but more than 80 families had to flee after their homes filled with water levels sometimes reaching more than three meters, the Gaza Ministry of Interior said in a statement.

In a letter to RT regarding the issue, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) maintained that “the claim is entirely false."

"Southern Israel does not have any dams. Due to the recent rain, streams were flooded throughout the region with no connection to actions taken by the State of Israel,” COGAT said.”

Instead of removing the fake news in its entirety, RT gave it and the truth equal weighting, preferring to give the fake news story credibility that it clearly shouldn’t have warranted.

This is an example of how, particularly RT as well as Iranian-controlled Press TV, are able to promote fake news even when it has been exposed as being exactly that.

3.4   The Daily Mail’s Mail Online[8], when informed that the story was false, made amendments to the headline and parts of the text.

3.5   After making some changes, while the headline no longer accused Israel of opening non-existent dams, the Palestinian charge remained in the story falsely “balanced” by an Israeli statement denying responsibility. Instead of removing the story, the Daily Mail gave equal weight to the Israeli truth and the Palestinian lie effectively turning it into a “he said, she said” dispute.

3.6   The former New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan has addressed this form of faulty journalism in one of her columns:

“Simply put, false balance is the journalistic practice of giving equal weight to both sides of a story, regardless of an established truth on one side. And many people are fed up with it. They don’t want to hear lies or half-truths given credence on one side, and shot down on the other. They want some real answers.”

3.7   It was only after further complaints that the following correction was issued:

“An earlier version of this article stated that Israel had opened river dams in the south of the country, causing flooding in the Gaza strip. In fact, there are no dams in southern Israel and the flooding was caused by rain and drainage issues. We are happy to clarify this.”

4. RAIDERS OF THE TEMPLE MOUNT[9]: In January 2017, the International Business Times published this story:

According to the IBT:

“The Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam, witnessed the highest number of Israeli raids in 2016 since East Jerusalem was occupied by Israel 50 years ago, according to a Palestinian news agency that cited Israeli statistics released Sunday.

The figures depict a steep increase in the number of raids by Jewish settlers and extremists — over 250 percent in the past seven years. While 5,658 Israelis reportedly raided the mosque in 2009, the number for 2016 is more than 14,000, according to the Days of Palestine, who cited Safa news agency. However, the statistics note the numbers don’t include raids conducted by Jewish students and Israeli security services.”

4.2   In fact, the figures referred to regulated visits to the Temple Mount by ordinary tourists, Jewish groups and others, none of whom “raided” the Al Aqsa Mosque that is located there.

4.3   The journalist got his information from a range of sources and links to sites including:

• Terrorist organization Hezbollah’s Al-Manar[10] website;
• Iranian government propaganda outfit Press TV[11];
• Anti-Israel hate site Middle East Monitor (MEMO)[12]

4.4   The primary source is the “Days of Palestine”[13] website, which states in its About Us[14] page:

“Members of the board of this platform believe in the right of Palestinians to live freely and with full sovereignty in their own homeland –Palestine. They believe that Zionism is an occupying power that enabled Zionist Jews to occupy Palestine with the help of world powers, including the UK, UN, USA and other western and Arab regimes.”

4.5   Following a complaint from HonestReporting[15], the IBT promptly unpublished the entire story.[16]

4.6   Given tensions over the Temple Mount holy site in the past few years, it is easy to see how such a piece of essentially fake news can act as an incitement to violence with serious consequences. That the story appeared in a mainstream media outlet using sources including a terrorist organization and an Iranian propaganda channel again demonstrates how fake news is moving from these fringes into the mainstream.

5. CONCLUSION: The above case studies represent a mere two examples of how mainstream media outlets have published what could be termed “fake news” by virtue of relying on sources that are not only patently unreliable but also actively seek to deliberately cause harm through misinformation and disinformation.

5.2   In the case of coverage of Israel, such stories fuel hatred of the country amongst the general public who are exposed to inaccurate and inciting stories. With an issue as already fraught as the Arab-Israeli conflict, this creates hatred of Israel, which, in turn, impacts local Jewish communities that have found themselves dealing with increased and record levels of anti-Semitism.[17]

5.3   Ultimately, fake news is damaging to the credibility of mainstream media and promotes polarization and extremism.

February 2018