AKEED, Husam Assal

Several news websites carried news circulated by users of social media sites about a group of Israeli tourists putting up a Hebrew sign in the ancient city of Petra, "glorifying two Israeli soldiers" killed in an operation carried out by three Palestinians in Jerusalem last Friday. Several websites later clarified the truth of the content of the sign, which did not glorify the dead soldiers. The sign had a marriage proposal addressed to a tourist.

The picture was initially posted on Facebook amid strong criticism of this action and of allowing the sign to be raised on Jordanian soil, especially at a time when the occupation authorities are closing Al-Aqsa Mosque against the background of Friday"s operation.

Many electronic sites copied the picture from social media platforms, claiming that it was of a sign glorifying the dead soldiers, without checking and translating the content of the sign. These sites took social media users as their source since a lot of news contained the statement "activists on social media sites have circulated…" On the other hand, some news sites corrected the publishing of incorrect news and not confirming the content of the sign by removing the story and republishing a new story, which contains the true content of the sign.

After confirming the content of the sign, Dr. Mohammed Nawafleh, chief commissioner of the Petra Development and Tourism Region Authority, was quoted as saying in a statement that the sign had the following words: "Sweetheart Hanna Zahav, will you marry me?" He added that "the clamor that was raised on social media sites over the sign raised by an Israeli tourist was inaccurate and contained false information." The statement was carried by several news sites afterward.

Other sites published a statement issued by the Petra Development and Tourism Region Authority, which described news on solidarity with the dead soldiers as "inaccurate and containing falsehoods." The statement added that a tourist "proposed to a girl who was accompanying him. Tourists who were in the area clapped for him." Immediately afterward, the sign was removed.

Abdul Aziz Hasanat, host of the Israeli tourist delegation, told a news website that the sign was a marriage proposal to one of the tourists. Meanwhile, Maan Governor Hosni Qudah denied to another website the truth of reports that tourists carrying Israeli nationality had staged a sit-in in the city of Petra.

The Jordanian Media Credibility Monitor (AKEED) contacted Yahya Matalqah, a Hebrew translator, who confirmed that the content of the sign was about a marriage proposal. The Monitor thinks that news sites had fallen into the trap of haste in reporting news from social media platforms without verifying the content of the sign. This has been the case in more than one previous incident.

This is considered a violation of Article 9 of the Press Code of Honor, which stresses that "the mission of journalism requires accuracy and objectivity, and its practice requires confirming the accuracy of information and news before publishing it." It is also a violation of the "standard of accuracy" in avoiding incorrect content and errors of information.

On the other hand, the AKEED Monitor has observed that many news websites did not heed the incorrect story and did not publish it, while other websites issued corrections and made contacts with the relevant parties, which denied that the sign contained expressions of solidarity with the dead occupation soldiers. AKEED thinks that the media correcting its news and verifying the truth of this news is considered a positive practice, which has recently been expanding.