The Eastern Daily Press, daily newspaper in Norfolk, England, used a picture of a woman apparently wearing a hijab and carrying an AK47 assault rifle with a story titled, “First Syrian refugees will arrive in Norwich next month,” the Press Gazette reported.
On Twitter, the paper apologized “for the offence caused” and told readers “as soon as we became aware it was removed.” The story now has as its main photo a picture from the Associated Press of a young girl and man captioned “Syrians evacuated from the embattled Syrian city of Aleppo.”
“We’ve receive 9 complaints about this article under clause 12 of the Code,” a spokesperson for the Independent Press Standards Organisation told iMediaEthics by e-mail. Clause 12 relates to discrimination.
“It is understood to have been online for about two hours, having also been posted on Facebook and Twitter, before the error was spotted and the image swapped for another,” according to the Press Gazette, which posted a screenshot of the image as used on Twitter.
The Press Gazette posted a screenshot of the original image that the Eastern Daily Press used (Credit: Press Gazette/screenshot)
When asked if the apology was published elsewhere and how the error occurred, David Powles, the paper’s editor, told iMediaEthics by e-mail, “We’ve no further comment.”
The Eastern Daily Press’s tweeted apology reads, “Dear readers. A picture was used in error today to accompany a story about Syrian refugees. It shouldn’t have been. We apologise wholeheartedly for the offence caused. As soon as we became aware it was removed.”
UPDATE: 1/31/2017 10:39 AM EST With response from IPSO