This morning, news broke of a horrific terrorist attack in Jerusalem. Four men and the two terrorists were dead after a brutal slaying that took place while men were at prayer.
Shortly after the story hit the airwaves, CNN issued this headline – “Deadly attack on Jerusalem mosque.”
Unfortunately, CNN got it very wrong.
The men who were praying were religious Jews who were gathered at a synagogue, not a mosque. Three were also American citizens (the other had dual citizenship in the UK.).
The terrorists entered a synagogue and used a meat cleaver to hack some of the men, who were found dead still wrapped in their prayer shawls. The remaining dead were shot.
The attackers were then killed by Israeli police.
While covering the event, however, CNN also issued this headline on their ticker, “4 Israelis, 2 Palestinians dead in Jerusalem.”
LeMonde, picking up the coverage also reported the story as “Six killed in Jerusalem,” making no distinction between the victims and the attackers.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry immediately called for the hurtful errors to be remedied and claimed that the news had been distorted to show an anti-Israeli bias.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nachshon stressed “tendentious reports and lies are meant to distort the reality, to defame Israel and in practice (if not always by intent) give a back-wind to terror.”
After realizing their error, CNN apologized for the gaffe, calling the mistake a simple error as a result of breaking coverage, not an attempt to intentionally mislead their viewers.
“As CNN updated its reporting on the terrorist attack on the synagogue in Jerusalem earlier today, our coverage did not immediately reflect the fact that the two Palestinians killed were the attackers,” the network said. “We erred and regret the mistake.”
