On Jan 7th 2004, HonestReporting published a communique entitled Throwing Stones. In it, they complain about an incident in Nablus where the media reported a Palestinian boy was killed while throwing stones at Israeli soldiers. Their communique contains a picture of two young men throwing large cinderblocks from an upper story of a building at (presumably) Israeli soldiers.

This communique contains a deceptive caption to the picture showing the cinderblocks being thrown. The sentence reads "Here's an actual scene of stone-throwing "protest" in Nablus".

By leaving out the definite article before "stone-throwing", HonestReporting is able to create some ambiguity as to whether or not this is a picture taken during the incident when the boy was killed. Obviously, if HonestReporting had simply written "a stone-throwing protest", that ambiguity would be cleared up and it would be obvious to any reader that this was a different incident. In addition, HonestReporting is able to create even more ambiguity by adding the word "actual" in front of "scene" in this sentence.

To be sure, the communique does mention that the event took place on Jan 3, and the picture was taken on Jan 2, but the dates are listed in two different paragraphs in the article, and any reader not paying close attention could easily miss this it.

A more honest and completely unambiguous sentence would simply have been, "Here's a scene of a stone-throwing "protest" in Nablus".

HonestReporting then lists two news organizations that it claims "completely ignored the IDF's actual version". Yet, when reading the articles, I was surprised to find statements from IDF sources in each of them. The Reuters article stated that "An Israeli military source said soldiers in Nablus opened fire in response to a barrage of stones thrown by dozens of protesters". The AP article stated "On Saturday, troops opened fire at a large number of Palestinians throwing stones, an army spokesman said."

HonestReporting then states that "These news reports adopt the Palestinian version as if it were established fact".

How can HonestReporting claim that it's the "Palestinian version" when an IDF spokesperson also stated it? After all, both Reuters and the AP specifically state that the "stone throwing" statement was made by an Israeli spokesman. Is it HonestReporting's position that these IDF statements were simply fabricated by Reuters and the AP? If so, then Reuters and the AP don't simply adopt "the Palestinian version", but falsely attribute that version to an Israeli spokesperson. This is not simply "selective omission", as HonestReporting puts it, it's blatant fabrication.

It should speak volumes to anyone that HonestReporting never actually accuses either Reuters or the AP of fabricating that IDF statement.

Despite repeated requests to the AP, Reuters and the IDF, I haven't gotten any of the organizations to verify whether or not the IDF's initial statement to the press about this incident included the phrase "stone throwing". I suspect that it did. I will update this article if I ever receive a response.