On December 30th the BBC News website’s ‘In Pictures’ section published a selection of “striking photos” from 2018.
The feature “2018 in pictures: Striking photojournalism from around the world” was sub-headed “The BBC News picture team has selected some of the most arresting images by photojournalists from around the world in 2018” and among the twenty-eight chosen images was one taken by a Reuters photographer that was presented as follows:
“A Palestinian man argues with an Israeli soldier in October during clashes over an Israeli order to shut down a Palestinian school in the town of as-Sawiyah, south of Nablus, in the occupied West Bank.”
The part of that story that the BBC chose not to tell was reported by AFP in October thus:
“Clashes broke out in the occupied West Bank on Monday after Israeli forces ordered the closure of a Palestinian school, AFP correspondents said.
The Israeli army said the school had been the source of months of violence, with stones thrown at a nearby major road used by its forces and Israeli settlers.
The school serves the Palestinian villages of As-Sawiya and Al-Lubban south of Nablus and is located on a main road through the West Bank. […]
The Israeli army said the school “been the site of popular terror acts and riots” in recent months.
“In response to the large number of popular terror acts endangering Israeli and Palestinian civilians driving on the road… the area of the school was declared a closed military zone.””
It would of course not have been at all difficult for the BBC’s ‘In Pictures’ team to add that relevant context to the photo caption.
