AKEED, Wasfi Khushman

Some Moroccan media outlets hastened to pick up a Jordanian protocol affair and turned it into a news story about the eruption of a diplomatic crisis between Jordan and Morocco.

On 2 April, Jordanian newspapers and news sites ran a story about the issuance of a royal decree approving a Cabinet decision on conducting transfers at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and approving the nomination of a number of Arab and foreign ambassadors to the Royal Hashemite Court.

One day later, Hespress, a Moroccan news site, published a press report titled "Jordanian Ambassador to Morocco Recalled After King"s Absence From Arab Summit." This is an international practice that is followed when a diplomatic crisis occurs between two countries.

The said site did not notice that a number of Jordanian sites that published the story about the royal decree included photocopies of the letter issued by the Royal Court. The letter starts as follows: "A royal decree has been issued approving Cabinet Decision No. 2113 dated 8/3/2017, which approves the transfer of His Excellency Ambassador Ali al-Kayid from the Jordanian Embassy in the Kingdom of Morocco to the center (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) as of 2/4/2017."

The visit of King Abdullah II to Morocco took place on 22 March and the Arab Summit was held at the Dead Sea on 29 March. The decision to transfer the ambassador had preceded the two events and it is not right to link it to them at all.

Some Moroccan sites circulated the erroneous story. Likewise, "withdrawing the Jordanian ambassador from Morocco" resonated with some other Arabic sites. In fact, some of them analyzed it at length by establishing a false connection between "recalling the ambassador" and changing the General Intelligence Department chief on the one hand and the absence of the king of Morocco from the Arab summit on the other.

However, a Moroccan news site responded to these erroneous reports by clarifying that the decision to transfer Jordanian Ambassador Ali al-Kayid had been made almost a month before and that there was no connection between it and the fact that the king of Morocco did not attend the Amman summit.

Although news sites in Jordan followed the official script and disregarded what was published by Arabic sites and did not discuss the transfer of Ambassador al-Kayid, at least one site adopted the notion of the start of a diplomatic crisis between Jordan and Morocco. Local news sites started denying any connection between the transfer of the ambassador and the absence of the king of Morocco from the Arab summit, while another site speculated that the decision to transfer al-Kayid from Morocco would be followed by another decision appointing him as Jordan"s ambassador in Riyadh since the position became vacant after the retirement of Ambassador Jamal Shamayleh.

Meanwhile, an Arabic news site published a report, which denied any connection between the transfer of the ambassador and the absence of the king of Morocco. It explained that the transfer decision had been adopted several months before and that Jordan understood the position of King Mohammed VI not to participate in Arab summits.

The Jordanian Media Credibility Monitor (AKEED) stresses the importance of receiving news from relevant sources and refraining from analysis that is not based on reliable information. It asks all media outlets not to be tempted by the saying that "false news is appealing" in view of the negative effect this has on the credibility of media outlets and the harm it does to the standards and ethics of journalism.