The State Information Service (SIS) issued a strong-worded protest to Reuters and BBC indicating essential comments for what they published on Al-Wahat incident that took place yesterday and is still going on. SIS condemned categorically their inaccurate coverage of this incident.
In view of the war Egypt is fighting in defense of its people and the peoples of the world against the bloody terrorism which is hitting everywhere, both Reuters and BBC published that 52 policemen were killed; including 23 officers according to Reuters, and 18 according to BBC based on unidentified security sources. Professionally speaking, it is not appropriate that two of the most prominent media outlets in the world make grave professional mistakes on top of which:
* Relying on what they called unidentified security sources, as they both did not wait or resort to official security authorities to get correct information. This is in contradiction with the internationally acknowledged professional rules in covering terrorist operations, as their security confrontation necessitates waiting for sometime till official information on the results are declared.
* Intentional manipulation in the first official statement on the Ministry of Interior describing the elements that killed and injured the policemen as "terrorist elements". BBC Arabic added while quoting the Ministry of Interior the following sentence: "the elements that it (Ministry of Interior) described as terrorist", which represents a manipulation of the quoting that holds the person who mentions it responsible. This indicates, on the other side, that BBC Arabic does not approve describing these criminal elements as terrorists. BBC "English" and Reuters "English" exchanged the term "terrorists", which is only accurate and realistic description of those elements, with the term "militants", a matter that may give a positive connotation to the reader.
SIS calls upon BBC, Reuters and other media outlets that relied on what they called their "own sources" to do one of these steps:
- Denying the published number of the victims and confirming the official figures, apologizing for the inaccuracy of this information and their sources.
- In case they could confirm their figures, which we confirm that they are absolutely wrong, the BBC and Reuters have to publish the names of this big number of the alleged victims.
via sis.gov.eg
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