The Washington Post on Tuesday apologized for the front page it ran a day earlier, which juxtaposed an image of family members mourning a child killed in a Hezbollah rocket attack on the Golan Heights with a headline reading “Israel hits targets in Lebanon.”
The subheadline of the story accompanying the image also did not mention the Hezbollah strike. which killed 12 children playing on a soccer field and playground in the Druze town of Majdal Shams
In an editor’s note published in the print edition on Tuesday, the newspaper admitted that the “headline and subheadline that accompanied a July 29 Page One photo and article about Israeli strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon did not provide adequate context.”
The note added that “The headlines should have noted that the Israeli strikes were a response to a rocket strike from Lebanon that killed 12 teenagers and children in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. The photo depicted mourning for one of those victims, as the caption noted.”
The original front page had sparked outrage from many pro-Israel figures and groups online, with the American Jewish Committee tweeting that: “This isn’t journalism. It’s a dangerous distortion of reality.”
The official X account of the Israeli Embassy in the US wrote: “Even with a photo from the funeral of an Israeli child killed by Hezbollah, @washingtonpost chose to frame Israel as the aggressor in the headline. Shameful journalism.”
It is not the first time the newspaper has faced criticism over its coverage of the ongoing Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza.
Earlier this month, it was slammed after it criticized the parents of American-Israeli hostage Omer Neutra for not mentioning “Israel’s assault on Gaza” as they addressed the Republican National Convention and called for his release.
The paper also described Neutra who was captured by Hamas terrorists on October 7 as “missing.”
“Omer Neutra has been missing since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel,” the paper posted on X with a link to their article about Neutra’s parents Ronen and Orna addressing the RNC in Milwaukee on Wednesday, leading the crowd in a chant of “bring them home.”
“When his parents speak publicly, they don’t talk about Israel’s assault on Gaza that has killed over 38,000 Palestinians, according to local officials. Experts have warned of looming famine,” the post said.
The post drew an immediate outcry, and the news outlet later replaced that post, but the story maintained the original language noting that the Neutras “don’t talk about the ferocity of Israel’s counterattack, which has killed more than 38,000 Palestinians and left nearly 90,000 injured, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.”
The Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, was also accused earlier this year of employing an antisemitic trope to criticize supporters of Israel.
In May, New York Deputy Mayor Fabian Levy said that he was “shocked” when the newspaper asked him to comment on its report that Jewish billionaires had influenced Mayor Eric Adams’ decision to send the NYPD to disperse an anti-Israel encampment at Columbia University.
“The insinuation that Jewish donors secretly plotted to influence government operations is an all too familiar antisemitic trope that The Washington Post should have been ashamed to ask about, let alone actually publish,” wrote Levy.
In November, the newspaper added an extensive editor’s note to a story it published about the challenges facing newborn babies in Gaza. The note pointed out that the original story “mischaracterized some aspects of Israeli rules for permits” for pregnant women to give birth in Israel, and also “incorrectly said that all Palestinian mothers who received authorization to leave Gaza for humanitarian reasons had to return to Gaza to reapply.”
The editor’s note also pointed out that the newspaper “neglected to seek comment from Israeli officials for this article, an omission that fell short of The Post’s standards for fairness.”