The Following is VIA TheBlaze.com
A 3-month-old baby girl was killed Wednesday when a car driven by a Palestinian man slammed into a group of bystanders at a Jerusalem light rail station, but the early headline of an Associated Press story on the incident drew criticism from pro-Israel media watchdogs who called it a perfect example of media bias against the Jewish state.
“Israeli police shoot man in east Jerusalem” was the initial headline of the AP story that ran on Yahoo and elsewhere, wording that ignored the killing of the baby, the Israeli police assessment that the attack was motivated by terrorism, and glossed over why police shot the man in the first place.
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, a pro-Israel media watchdog,captured a screenshot of the headline, which was later edited. However, some Middle Eastern websites, including Lebanon’s Daily Star and Turkey’s Daily Sabah kept the original headline that obscured the context behind what really happened.
Israeli police said eight other people were injured when the suspect rammed into the rail station crowd. He tried to flee the scene on foot before police shot him. Israel Army Radio reported Thursday morning that he died of his wounds.
An Israeli government spokesman identified the suspect as Abed Abdelrahman Shaludeh and said he was a member of Hamas who had served time in Israeli prison for terrorism.
“[T]here were clearly enough details available at the time, even with the news still in the hazy ‘breaking’ stage, that the inappropriate and misleading headline should never have appeared on the story,” CAMERA observed. “Nearly an hour after AP’s first report, it published a second one, containing virtually no new information, with the more appropriate headline, ‘Car slams into east Jerusalem train station.’”
But the second headline also drew criticism, because it made no mention of the driver, the apparent terrorism connection and the slain infant.
“You’ll notice that this, too, is repellant behavior by the AP,” Seth Mandel of the conservative Commentary magazine wrote. “To say getting the truth from the AP on Israel is like pulling teeth would be an understatement.”
“The media’s reaction to the murder was stomach turning–and, unfortunately, not atypical,” Mandel added, calling the coverage “bias on steroids.”
The AP changed the headline again, where it currently reads: “Palestinian kills baby at Jerusalem station.”
Paul Colford, director of media relations for the Associated Press, declined to respond directly to criticism of the headline, but said it was written when confirmed facts were still scarce.
“The headline in question was short-lived, written when confirmed details of what happened were scarce,” Colford said in an email to TheBlaze. “The headline was replaced in just over a half-hour as AP continued to publish updates about the incident, the driver and the victim. The final version of the story, and its headline, made clear what had happened.”
Nevertheless, the original first sentence of the AP story read: “Israeli police say they have shot a man whose car slammed into a crowded stop in east Jerusalem, in what they suspect was an intentional attack.” It also included information attributed to a police spokeswoman that “nine people were wounded, some seriously.”
“Later in the day, after executives at the BBC located a shred of integrity hidden somewhere in the sofa cushions, that was changed as well,” Mandel wrote. “It now reads: ‘Jerusalem car “attack” kills baby at rail station.’ I say ‘a shred of integrity’ because the BBC still saw fit to wrap ‘attack’ in scare quotes. What are the options, here? Was it a car ‘love tap’? It was a terrorist attack, perpetrated by a member of a terrorist organization.” The new BBC headline can be seen here.
Israeli media reported that the baby killed, Chaya Zissel Braun, was an American citizen.
Her grandfather, Shimshon Halperin, told reporters outside the Jerusalem hospital where she was transported that the impact of the vehicle threw her from her stroller, sending her more than 10 yards in the air before she landed headfirst on the sidewalk, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Halperin said her parents had tried unsuccessfully for years to have a baby until Chaya was born.
“They had just returned from the Kotel [Western Wall]. It was the first time in her life that the girl was at the Kotel. They [her parents] took pictures, they held her up to face the Temple Mount, and they told her this is the holy place, this is the Temple Mount,” Halperin said.
“We express our deepest condolences to the family of the baby, reportedly an American citizen, who was killed in this despicable attack,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement. “We urge all sides to maintain calm and avoid escalating tensions in the wake of this incident.”
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4 Responses
It’s very sad to see the lack of empathy from the world. Whenever Israel is attacked, we have to “show restraint”. If the shoe was on the other foot, clearly the headlines would have screamed, ” INNOCENT PALESTINIAN BABY MURDERED BY ISRAELI….. And then followed by all the antisemitic comments as well. We have to realize at all times that we are in GALLUS. Hashem is talking to us. Let’s continue to do teshuva, and daven to HKBH to bring Mashiach bemhaira beyamenu!
May the family and parents of Chaya Zisssel a”h, be comforted amoung the mourners of tzion, and may they only have many future simchos.
There is no bias here. The AP article is basically repeating the what the police told them. When more information became available, the article was updated and the headline was appropriately changed.
We whine and moan about how the mainstream media doesn’t cover terrorist attacks adequately or in a timely manner. Now we know why: When they do, they get subjected to vile attacks like this one.
#2 must live on a desert island someplace. The AP headline in isolation would be at least suspect of bias. But the AP headline in the overall context of media coverage of the middle east and Jewish affairs, including its own coverage cannot be viewed as anything but biased.
I guess #2 doesn’t get off his island very much.
charliehall: Ordinarily, perhaps, you might be right. But in this case, the shooting of the terrorist was such a minor point that the fact that it was singled out in the headline is suspect. I’m in Israel, so obviously I got the news in a different way than you did, but I know that the big news was that a car slammed into a light rail station. Nobody knew details, true- nobody was sure it was terrorism, etc- but by the same token nobody was focusing on what happened to the guy in the car. As the saying goes, “Dog Bites Man” isn’t news but “Man Bites Dog” is- when the big news part of the story is so much skimmed over, it does seem suspicious.
In contrast, I’d say that you’d be right if you said this about the Palestinian-American boy who was killed by soldiers. Writing that as the title if one has few details is logical- that’s the story. Of course, it’s better to get both sides of it, but one can easily argue a lack of bias. In this case, however, not so much, considering how the ikar of the incident was so skipped over.