Complaint
This online article offered a survey of the history of suicide attacks, giving as its first example the Sicarii, a Jewish group active in the 1st Century CE which targeted members of the Roman occupying forces and those who collaborated with them for assassination. A viewer complained that this was inaccurate, it being clear from the account of the historian Josephus (the sole source of information on the Sicarii) that they did not use suicide as a means of attack. He also complained that the item gave the misleading impression that there were no suicide attacks between the end of World War II and Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, whereas the Japanese Red Army’s massacre at Lod Airport, planned as a suicide mission from the outset, had taken place in 1972. The ECU considered the complaint in the light of the ѿý’s editorial standards of accuracy.
Outcome
The article said “At the end of World War II, suicide attacks virtually ceased. During the Cold War between East and West, we saw almost no suicide attacks until Israel invaded Lebanon” (emphasis added). The ECU therefore did not agree that it gave the impression there were no suicide attacks in the period, or that it was misleading not to have mentioned the Lod Airport massacre. However, it accepted that, although the Sicarii may have preferred suicide to capture, there was no evidence of their using suicide as a means of an attack. In the ECU’s judgement, this was a material inaccuracy in the context of an item which set out to sketch the history of suicide attacks.
Partly upheld
Further action
ѿý Arabic agreed to revise the article in the light of the finding.