France 2 Apologizes for Fauxtography

By Published On: January 7, 2009

Leenhardt apologizes Gaza.jpg
France 2’s Etienne Leenhardt: ‘We must be very attentive on verifying sources’

France 2, the network that brought us the Mohammed Al-Dura broadcast, now apologizes for a fake report about fighting in Gaza. The JTA reports:

PARIS (JTA) — A French television network has apologized for erroneously broadcasting a false report on Israel’s Gaza operation.

Assisted by an anonymous posting, the French news blogger site Le Post proved a report Monday by France 2 television used an outdated amateur video of Palestinian casualties from an accidental truck explosion as current footage demonstrating the violence in Gaza.

France 2 also was responsible for a September 2000 report, accused of being a fake, of the supposed shooting death of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy, Mohammed al-Dura, by the Israeli army.

In the new video, the truck in question contained bombs belonging to Hamas and exploded on Sept. 23, 2005. Intended to illustrate the extent of Web reports on the Israeli offensive in Gaza, the video shows dead bodies of toddlers being laid out on a white sheet.

By Monday, Etienne Leenhardt, the joint director responsible for investigative reports, apologized to Le Post journalists for “an error on our part.”

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