On Christmas Day, CAMERA’s Israel staff prompted correction of an erroneous reference to “Palestine” in an Associated Press story in both English and Spanish about Pope Leo’s Christmas widely reported and closely followed remarks about international conflicts and disasters.
The corrected language appeared in over 180 secondary media outlets across North America and beyond, underscoring the global impact of CAMERA’s timely follow up on influential wire service stories and thereby preventing misinformation from appearing in scores of media outlets reaching a global audience of untold millions.
The Dec. 25 article, “Pope Leo XIV urges the faithful on Christmas to shed indifference in the face of suffering,” from the Vatican City, appeared at the very top of AP’s Middle East news section that day and the next. It had initially stated (screenshot at left):
Leo called for “justice, peace and stability” in Lebanon, Palestine, Israel and Syria, prayers for ‘the tormented people of Ukraine,’ and ‘peace and consolation’ for victims of wars, injustice, political stability, religious persecution and terrorism, citing Sudan, South Sudan, Mali, Burkina Faso and Congo. [Emphasis added.]
The Vatican News reported that the Pope used this language. But unlike AP, the Church news agency rightly enclosed Leo’s words in quotation marks, thereby attributing the inaccurate terminology directly to the religious leader:
The Pope prayed for “justice, peace, and stability for Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, and Syria,” and urged that the promise of peace rooted in righteousness be renewed. He appealed in a particular way for Ukraine, asking that “the clamor of weapons cease,” and that all those involved, with the support of the international community, find the courage to engage in “sincere, direct, and respectful dialogue.”
References to the West Bank or the Gaza Strip as “Palestine” are inconsistent with AP usage and wrongly suggest the existence of a State of Palestine. The AP commendably updated the article, replacing the misleading reference to Palestine with the word Palestinians. The AP previously commendably corrected this point last month, as well as in 2019 and 2016.
In response to the holiday communication from CAMERA’s Israel office, AP editors immediately amended the article, changing the erroneous reference from “Palestine” to “the Palestinian territories.” As a result, the corrected language reached well over 180 media outlets during the course of the holiday, including local radio and television affiliates of CBS, Fox, ABC, NBC and NPR. It also appeared in the websites of major newspapers including The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle as well as on the sites of major national broadcasters PBS and ABC News.
Perhaps channeling the holiday spirit, the corrected language reached several Alaskan media outlets, and made the rounds in far-flung international locations including The Manila Times and Japan News.
This Christmas success breaks a previous CAMERA record on the number of secondary media outlets which carried corrected language thanks to a single AP correction.