Huffington Post Deletes Hamas Comment Praising Tel Aviv Bus Bomb From AP Story
by Zach Pontz
After news of yesterday’s bus bombing in Tel Aviv broke, those outlets that rely on the Associated Press as a primary source rushed to publish a piece from AP reporter Ariel David on the story.
Included in the report was this line and a follow up statement from Hamas:
“While Hamas did not take responsibility for the attack, it praised the bombing.
‘We consider it a natural response to the occupation crimes and the ongoing massacres against civilians in the Gaza Strip,’ Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum told The Associated Press.”
The National Post, a Canadian news site, immediately published the story, while Reuters et al followed thereafter. These news outlets included the Hamas element in their headlines.
Then there’s the Huffington Post. One of the most popular news websites in the world, it relies heavily on AP content. According to Huff Watch, however, this doesn’t mean they don’t take liberties in how they edit the articles. In the case of the Tel Aviv bus bomb they edited out Ariel David’s report on Hamas, and inserted false news. As Huff Watch writes:
” Until around 1:00pm, HuffPost’s version of the AP story falsely claimed “There was no official comment from Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.” And even after HuffPost updated the story, around 1:00pm, to include Hamas’s praise and justification, it never changed the headline — nor did it post a separate story focusing on this fact.”