BBC Illustrates Syria's Houla Massacre With a 2003 Iraq Photo
■ The claim
BBC News ran a photo of rows of shrouded bodies as an image of the Houla massacre in Syria.
■ What actually happened
The BBC used an image circulating on Twitter, attributed to Syrian activists, with a note that it could not be independently verified. The photo was actually taken by Marco Di Lauro in Iraq in 2003. Di Lauro said publicly he was astonished the BBC used it without checking the source. The BBC removed it, and its social media editor admitted the checks should have been more thorough and apologized. The massacre itself, in which more than 100 people were killed, was real.
■ The proof
Photographer Marco Di Lauro identified the image as his 2003 Iraq work, and the BBC removed it and apologized in a May 29, 2012 Editors' blog post.
■ Original reporting
- PetaPixel: BBC mistakenly runs dated Iraq photohttps://petapixel.com/2012/06/01/bbc-mistakenly-runs-dated-iraq-photo-to-illustrate-the-syrian-massacre
■ Corrections, findings & records
- iMediaEthics: BBC apologizes for 2003 Iraq photohttps://www.imediaethics.org/bbc-apologizes-for-2003-iraq-photo-with-syrian-massacre-coverage/
- Il Post: The BBC and the Houla photohttps://www.ilpost.it/2012/05/31/la-bbc-e-la-foto-di-hula/
■ Wayback Machine copies
Stories sometimes get edited after publication. These links open the Internet Archive's earliest snapshot of each original.
- Archive copy: PetaPixel: BBC mistakenly runs dated Iraq photohttps://web.archive.org/web/2/https://petapixel.com/2012/06/01/bbc-mistakenly-runs-dated-iraq-photo-to-illustrate-the-syrian-massacre
■ Grade
RETRACTED: The outlet itself retracted, corrected, or settled. How we grade →