Fairfax apologises for using pic of wrong man for dead teen terror suspect on three front pages
Today’s Fairfax front pages featuring the incorrect person. Source: Drew Sheldrick /Twitter
Fairfax Media has issued an apology for using a picture of the wrong man on three of its front pages today in articles about the teenage terror-suspect shot by police.
The image of the unidentified man ran in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times under headlines including “Teen Jihad” and “Teen’s act of terror”, claiming it was 18-year-old terror suspect Numan Haider who was killed by police on Tuesday night.
In a statement on its websites Fairfax issued an “unreserved apology” for the error saying: “One of the photographs run on this website and Fairfax papers in relation to the death of Numan Haider was published in error. The young man in a suit was not Mr Haider, and we unreservedly apologise to him for the error.”
Today’s SMH. Mumbrella has chosen to obscure the man’s face.
The apology went on to state that the man in the suit had no links to any extremist or terrorism groups and that the online article had been taken down. It is understood that the print edition is not being withdrawn from sale.
“The young man has no connection whatsoever with any extremist or terrorist group and we deeply regret any such inference arising from the publication of the photograph,” said the newspaper.
“The picture has been withdrawn from circulation.”
Further comment is being sought from Fairfax Media.
The blunder follows that of the New Zealand Herald in July which ran a tribute story about an NZ-born Israeli soldier accompanied by a photograph of late comedian Ryan Dunn.
Nic Christensen
And the incorrect image is still on display of the front pages of the digital editions of both The Age and SMH. Um, guys?
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This is what happens when you make a habit out of pinching photos from social media.
An expensive mistake that they will doubtlessly make again and again.
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Fairfax now lowers the bar to that of its hysterical News Corp counterparts. And I can’t imagine how that young man must feel now. I hope he sues the pants off them.
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They also wrote that the “dead man was of ‘muslim appearance’, but this was not independently confirmed”. Not really sure what ‘of muslim appearance means, seeing as it’s a religion and not a race. Pick up your game Fairfax, this is Murdoch-worthy.
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Given their recent coverage it feels a bit like there is a “they all look like terrorists” mentality going on at Fairfax – sort it out you idiots
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Hey Andrew. When was the last time a News Corp paper put the incorrect image of a terrorist on the front page? Answer: Never.
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What exactly is “of Muslim appearance”? This is as bad as Fairfax’s coverage of stories years ago concerning gays and transsexuals – everything is poorly fact checked but stereotyped and hyped – packaged for maximum outrage to its readers with no interest in the truth.
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Jim, News Corporation newspapers haven’t wrongly accused anyone of being terrorists on the front page since April 18 last year.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/met.....story.html
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That’s what happens when you get rid of all the subs and the journalists left are under extraordinary pressure. I really do feel sorry for them, because I understand the kind of environment they’re in at Fairfax nowadays, but it’s a pretty catastophic mistake by anyone’s measure.
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Another sign of a hard-pressed Fairfax having to lower its standards, I’m afraid. And if the rumour that the Herald is going up in price next week is true, not very good timing,either!
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With you Jim. I’m sick of people bringing up News Limited when Fairfax stuff up. The quality of News Limited publications is completely irrelevant and Fairfax deserve unreserved criticism when it makes errors of this nature, particularly given it continues to tell everyone it is the “last bastion of quality journalism”.
This is a disgusting mistake and am surprised by the lack of outrage in comment sections like this and on Twitter. Absolutely inexcusable.
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Fairfax – and in particular SMH – are really losing the plot. Lots of sloppy errors. That’s what happens when you let so much experience walk out the door. Might be time to put the adults back in charge…
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Shows the lack of depth and experience in the newsroom especially photo editors thus is their territory and something like this must be tripled checked before publishing – amateurs !!!!
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And they say Gina Rinehart is a threat to Fairfax credibility …. massive own-goal.
If you can’t trust what’s on the front page, can you trust what’s inside for accuracy.
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Sorry Surly Dave. Should have made it clear I was referring to Australian publications. But good to see you lumping the SMH with the Post.
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Hoping the irony of Wally’s post isn’t lost on anyone here.
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The guy on the front page looks like Robin Van Persie.
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So many things wrong with this!!! The sad thing is that a LARGE number of Australians actually believe without question what is in the media…..there is a certain level of responsibility that comes with this surely!?!?!
What we are seeing is the best way to create HATE wars – Muslim appearance hhhmmmm…..
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Interesting too that News is happy to talk up Fairfax’s readership when they slip up, with The Australian reporting:
“…newspapers including The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, and was on their sites, which are read by millions of people each month….”
Bet you’d never read that statistic on a News Corp article any other time!
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Beautiful! Not the grotesque mistake, but watching the Fairfax luvvies, the bourgeois-Left Regressives squirm at the discovery their own “infallibility” is a delusion.
How frightful it must be, to be so morally virtuous, yet fallible!
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Further proof that The Age has truly lost the plot over the past decade. It is a disgusting error. Fairfax already gets away with rampant anti-Israel discrimination (Middle East correspondent Ruth Pollard must be married to a Palestinian her views are so one-sided).
And now they put a photo on the front page of an innocent young man, accusing him of a shocking crime. I also hope his family sue the pants off them.
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“The Age has introduced digital subscriptions so we can continue to invest in independent, quality journalism.”
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totally agree with the SMH’s full-on shift to the Left. I feel like i’m reading Green Left Weekly. it’s anti-semitic, anti-business, anti-Abbott and pro-welfare state, pro-Palestine and pro apologising for terrorists. People i know are cancelling subs and turning off it in droves. Fred Hilmer’s negligence in not buying Seek and Carsales when they were much small, or better competing with them, put Fairfax into a death spiral. This undergraduate shift to the loony left will be the fatal blow.
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“Fred Hilmer’s negligence in not buying Seek and Carsales…”
If they had bought them, they would have mismanaged and retarded their growth, then sold them off in the last year or so to pay down debt.
Fairfax’ management culture fundamentally fails to grasp digital and, increasingly, fails to grasp journalism.
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Surely the only proper action by Fairfax is a full front page apology. Where is it?
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The difference between Fairfax and News Corpse is the actual journalism. This is a stuff up in the editorial production process, compared to News Corps running a terror scare campaign, Bolt and Akerman’s crazed right wing gibbering, Blairs pathological misogyny and Whittaker’s pathetic pursuit of Harriet Wran on the front of todays Telegraph.Consistency.
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Does it make any difference in a place infested with social workers making stories to substantiate their wages?
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