As the revolutions in Syria and Yemen broke out, a torrent of mate- rials reached Al Jazeera without interruption. One of the videos that was aired during the coverage of the Yemeni revolution showed scenes of prisoners supposedly being tortured by Yemeni security forces. Later, it turned out to be an old video of Iraqi prisoners. This was a clear mis- take, for which Al Jazeera promptly apologised to its viewers and cor- rected the news. The apology came within minutes of airing the footage and it was only broadcast once. For some, this was an opportunity to take advantage of and attack the Network and question its credibility (1) . It should be noted that this is the only example critics of Al Jazeera keep citing when they talk about its mistakes. In this regard, we should also mention the role of certain govern- ments in “fabricating” the video and leaking it to the media to report it as fact. Repressive governments often play a role in misleading the public and trying to entrap the media, especially those with credibility and influence such as Al Jazeera. In addition to fabricating news and information, these officials often ban the media and prevent their field reporters, or those who cooperate with them, from accessing sources. At times, they have even deployed troops of trained electronic armies to distort facts and undermine Al Jazeera’s credibility, which is another method of targeting it. In this context, the Syrian war posed the biggest challenge in terms of news verification, especially with the measures taken by the Syrian government against the media. Although Al Jazeera broadcast count- less authentic videos, it however made a few mistakes compared to the torrent of material it was getting. At the time, the network did have a verification mechanism in place, but it was not advanced enough to deal with all the materials it was receiving. In 2014, a specialised social media unit was set up within the newsroom, staffed by a highly skilled team. The main job of this unit was to verify the content sent by users on social media, which had become an important news source, almost competing with traditional media outlets (2) .
(1) Marai et al, Ibid, p. 20.
(2) Ibid, p. 23.
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