UK Media Watch prompts Telegraph correction to false claim over ‘Arabic-speaking saints’

Yesterday, we posted about a correction prompted by our office to a false Guardian claim that two recently canonised Ottoman-era ‘Palestinians’ were the “first Arabic-speaking saints” in the Catholic Church. (We demonstrated that there have been other Arabic-speaking Lebanese saints.)

Similarly, we complained to The Telegraph about an article they published, written by Robert Tait, with the same false claim. Indeed, the “Arabic-speaking saint” narrative was highlighted both in the text and in the headline.

Here’s a snapshot of the original.

headline

A couple of days after contacting Telegraph editors, they removed the misleading claim from the body of the article and the headline.

Here’s the new headline.

revised
Link to cached version of original

We commend Telegraph editors on the revision, and will update you when we receive responses from other UK news sites (Daily Mail and Times of London) which we contacted over the same error. 

Finally, it’s quite telling that The Telegraph’s Robert Tait blocked this writer on Twitter after a polite request – prior to Telegraph editors correcting his report – that he should consider contacting editors to get the false claim revised.  

tait

As we have demonstrated previously, many professional journalists working in the Middle East are extremely sensitive to even the most mild criticism of their work. 

Written By
More from Adam Levick
UK Media Watch prompts corrections at Telegraph and EuroNews
Yesterday, we posted about an inaccurate report on the website of Europe's...
Read More
Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *