Friday 30 August 2013

Wyre Davies reprimanded by the BBC Trust


The BBC Trust has censured their Middle East correspondent Wyre Davies for a tweet he made last November, during Operation Pillar of Defence. They found that he breached accuracy guidelines in this tweet:
 "In this 'limited operation' at least 13 Palestinians and 3 Israelis have been killed - nearly all civilians. #Gaza". 
As a report in the Independent puts it, "Four of the 13 Palestinians were later identified as civilians, with the others being militants."

The BBC Trust has now called on the BBC to have a good, hard look at the use of Twitter by BBC staff and, among other recommendations, to think about deleting past inaccurate tweets. (What about tweets that seem to breach impartiality though?)

The BBC's reporting on Twitter during Operation Pillar of Defence left much to be desired, and several other tweets by senior BBC reporters struck BBC Watch and others as having breached the BBC's accuracy guidelines too. Only this one got censured by the BBC Trust though. 

Still, it's a step forward. 

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