Media Malpractice

The headline reads:  Israel kills Gaza gunman along tense border

The article is short and vile:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian gunman suspected of trying to plant explosives beneath a fence at the border with Gaza, the Israeli military said on Sunday.

Soldiers on Sunday recovered the remains of the gunman alongside an assault rifle, a statement from the Israeli military spokesman said.

None of the militant groups in the Hamas Islamist-ruled Gaza Strip claimed responsibility for the incident, which Israel said occurred after dark on Saturday.

The tense frontier has been largely quiet since an Egyptian-brokered truce silenced a violent outbreak last month when Israel killed 25 Palestinians in air strikes launched at Gaza, most of them militants, and gunmen fired 200 rockets at Israel.

(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Alison Williams)

It doesn't take a genius to see that the story-telling is warped in order to promote several falsehoods.

The writers refer to the Palestinian as a "gunman," not a terrorist.

And not just the first, but the first and second paragraphs end with a comment that frames what occurred as based on what the Israeli military said, as if to suggest they might be making it up. And if you think that's a stretch, go read some of the comments on the piece. Here's one:

"Soldiers on Sunday recovered the remains of the gunman alongside an assault rifle, a statement from the Israeli military spokesman said." So where was the explosive, or was that just made up?

The third paragraph suggests the "gunman" wasn't a terrorist since, after all, none of the militant groups claimed responsibility. (According to the writers, those "militant groups" aren't terrorists either.)

The last paragraph is the most egregious. It is peddling the notion that Egypt initiated a truce after Israel killed 25 Palestinians. And then some more of those gunmen fired 200 rockets into Israel. As if the rockets came after the Israeli attack, when in fact in occurred before.

I would suggest that Reuters fire the writer and editor of this piece who have proved that they cannot get a single sentence of a 4-sentence article right. And whether the inaccuracies are intentional or unconscious, they are dangerous.