Gaza, Israel, it’s easy as ABC
American news anchor slips up over location of bomb-damaged buildings during live broadcast
Stuart Winer is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.
The Middle East conflict isn’t as easy as ABC, as one newscaster demonstrated when she mistakenly reported footage of the bomb-ravaged Gaza Strip as being in Israel.
ABC anchor Diane Sawyer made the slip during the station’s coverage of Operation Protective Edge on Wednesday.
Over transposed images of buildings reduced to rubble by Israeli airstrikes in the Strip, Sawyer said: “Here an Israeli family trying to salvage what they can,” and “One woman standing speechless among the ruins.”
ABC later apologized for the mistake.
ABC News Statement: http://t.co/mrQrvwoUPO pic.twitter.com/niZYuWpQ1D
— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) July 10, 2014
Sawyer wasn’t the only news person to have run into difficulties reporting the conflict. A CNN reporter who was trying to give a live shot with an Iron Dome battery in background was cut short by a rather terse Israeli soldier who insisted she couldn’t film the anti-missile launcher. The reporter tried gamely to finish her report but the soldier’s strategically deployed shoulder blocked the camera view.
Israel launched Operation Protective Edge two days earlier in an effort to stem Hamas rocket attacks on southern towns and cities. Palestinian terrorists in Gaza have fired over 200 rockets at Israel, with some reaching as far north as the outskirts of Haifa, 160 kilometers away. In response, Israeli Air Force jets have struck over 500 terror targets in Gaza.
