GPO Shames Time for Biased Coverage

Israel took its campaign for fair coverage in the media to Time magazine on Thursday, with an official complaint for misrepresenting a Palestinian terrorist as a “graphic designer.”

The October 15, 2015 Time article read: “On Tuesday, Allyan (sic), a graphic designer from the predominantly Palestinian neighborhood Jabel Mukaber, was killed by Israeli security forces after allegedly trying to carry out an attack in Jerusalem.”

The “alleged” attacker was Baha Aliyan, who along with two others, murdered three people — Alon Gobeberg, Haim Haviv and Richard Lakin Hy”d — and wounded 17 others, some seriously in a vicious rampage on a bus at Armon HaNetziv (East Talpiot) in Yerushalayim.

Two of the victims had already been laid to rest by the time the Time report was published, but the magazine ignored repeated requests, first by an Israeli NGO and later by the General Press Office, to correct it.

“An Israeli NGO first approached Time correspondent Rebecca Collard on October 18 and received no response. The Government Press Office contacted Collard on February 25, presented the facts and demanded a correction. Neither recognition nor correction of the erroneous article resulted,” the GPO said.

After being contacted again, Collard responded to the GPO on March 4, 2016, saying: “I’ve forwarded your concerns to my editors.”

But despite repeated reminders from the GPO, the article had still not been corrected – five months after the attack.

“When the headlines are lies, journalistic reports are completely biased, and journalistic ethics cry out to the heavens — we decided we will no longer let it pass, and use all of the tools at our disposal in such extreme cases,” GPO director Nitzan Chen said.

“I expect the respectable magazine to take responsibility and issue an apology for the sake of human integrity. This is the least that can be demanded for the families who lost their loved ones in this murderous attack.”