UK Media Watch and CAMERA have prompted countless corrections on the same inaccuracy – the claim that Tel Aviv is Israel’s capital. However, it’s particularly interesting that during the week that Donald Trump’s impending decision to officially recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was the big story, the Financial Times joined the list of media outlets who’ve made some version of this error.
You can see how they used Tel Aviv as a metonym for Israel’s capital in the article (Donald Trump plans to recognize Jerusalem as Israeli capital, Dec. 6) in our tweet that day.
Funny that during current frenzied news coverage of impending US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, yet another UK media outlet (@FT) erroneously suggests that Tel Aviv is in fact Israel's capital https://t.co/lU7RWprvLC @IlanBenZion @ErikaSolomon @Sam1Fleming pic.twitter.com/SBNNyUn49w
— CAMERA UK (formerly UK Media Watch and BBC Watch) (@CAMERAorgUK) December 6, 2017
We were in communication with Financial Times editors, who upheld our complaint and revised the sentence.
Note, that the Financial Times editor (as with most editors at UK media outlets who correct this error) chose not to replace “Tel Aviv” with “Jerusalem” as shorthand for the capital, but instead used “Israel”.