Misleading headlines at Guardian and Financial Times

We emailed Financial Times editors, noting that, five paragraphs down in the article, we're told that Israel was not included in the report which ranked Dubai first in Mid-East start-ups. Of course, Israel leads the Mid-East in start-ups, and in fact has the 5th highest number of startup companies than any other country in the world. So, the headline's claim that "Dubai leads the Middle East in start-ups" is simply not accurate.

The Guardian

Today, we tweeted a critique of a Guardian headline accompanying a March 21st article on accusations against the NGO World Vision.  The headline read: Inquiry clears World Vision Gaza of diverting funds to Hamas“. The strapline read: Australian government review finds no evidence for Israel’s 2016 allegations that the NGO siphoned off millions of dollars a year to the Islamist group“.

We then emailed editors noting that, as the text in the actual article makes clear, the Australian government inquiry only concluded that no Australian taxpayer funds were diverted to Hamas by World Vision. It didn’t address the broader Israeli investigation into whether the NGO diverted other funds to Hamas.  Also, as the text in the article makes clear, the internal investigation by World Vision is still ongoing and hasn’t yet reached a conclusion.

The way the headline and strap line is written would influence readers to falsely conclude that the NGO has been vindicated. This is clearly not the case.

Financial Times

Also today, we tweeted the following in response to an article at Financial Times (pay wall) with a headline that read: “Dubai leads Middle East in start-ups, local rivals rush to follow”.

We emailed Financial Times editors, noting that, five paragraphs down in the article, we’re told that Israel was not included in the report which ranked Dubai first in Mid-East start-ups.  Of course, Israel leads the Mid-East in start-ups, and in fact has the fifth highest number of startup companies in the world.  So, the headline’s claim that “Dubai leads the Middle East in start-ups” is simply not accurate.

We’ll update this post when he hear back from editors.

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