h/t DM
On June 18th BBC Monitoring brought readers of the ‘News From Elsewhere‘ section of the BBC News website the horrific news that some Lebanese football fans are being forced to watch the World Cup on an Israeli TV station.
“Football supporters in Lebanon have apparently been tuning in to Israeli television for their World Cup fix, rather than pay cable fees.
Qatari cable television provider Sama was granted exclusive rights to broadcast the games in the Middle East, but many households have been unable to pay the fees demanded by the sole agent in Lebanon. Instead, the Al-Nahar newspaper reports, “Israeli commentators’ voices in Hebrew can be heard everywhere in south Lebanon; in people’s houses, balconies and courtyards because the country has failed to allocate money to enable them to watch the games,”.”
That, apparently, has now changed but notably the writer of this report chose to end it with the following paragraph.
“The decision to air the matches free-to-air can’t end soon enough for one viewer, who complained to Al-Nahar that the Israeli commentators were biased against “the Muslims of Bosnia” during their match against Argentina.”
Did BBC Monitoring even bother to fact check that anonymous accusation from a person writing in the below the line comments to an internet article before electing to highlight and amplify it on the pages of the BBC News website as “news”?
