Monday, 26 October 2015

AKEED

After a royal decree was issued on 25 October 2015 appointing Faisal Al Fayez as president of the Senate, several electronic sites published a news report that speaks about Al Fayez receiving congratulators.  Other electronic sites published a report on the same subject, but they added a picture and said that Interior Minister Salameh Hammad had given Al Fayez a military salute. The headlines were as follows:

• In Pictures, Al Fayez Receives Congratulators; Interior Minister Salameh Hammad Performs Military Salute. The old picture was used with several pictures from two other occasions, old and new, in which Faisal Al Fayez appears in different clothes. 
• "In Video and Pictures, Al Fayez Receives Congratulators; Hammad Gives Him Military Salute". The video also shows that the clothes of Faisal Al Fayez are different from the picture. Besides, the place where the video was shot is different from the place where the picture was taken.
• "Al Fayez Receives Congratulators; Hammad Performs Military Salute." The content of the news report says verbatim that "the attached pictures show Interior Minister Salameh Hammad at the house of Al Fayez to offer congratulations and give military salute to the new president of the Senate, Al Fayez."

The Jordanian Media Credibility Monitor (AKEED) went back to the date of the published picture, in which the interior minister appears while saluting Faisal Al Fayez. It turned out that the picture was old and was taken by photojournalist Faris Khalifeh, who explained, in a telephone call with him, that "the picture was taken during the celebrations of the last Independence Day."

Khalifeh said that "the original picture is on my Facebook page as part of a collection of pictures at the house of former Deputy Sharaf Al Hayajneh where Faisal Al Fayez, Salameh Hammad, and other personalities were present."

The Jordanian Media Credibility Monitor (AKEED) is of the opinion that using these pictures in this manner and in a context other than the one in which they were taken and their real date harms the standard of clarity. This is through the use of archival pictures without referring to their date or place and publishing them as recent pictures and in the context of a new piece of news.

This harms the standard of accuracy in journalistic work, which requires, in this case, making a reference to the source of the archival picture and avoiding the erroneous content that was based on it.