National Public Radio (NPR) on Monday published an article with a map of the Middle East that omitted Israel, instead labelling the Jewish state’s territory as “Palestine.” The map illustrated the article “What Are You Afraid Of In 2016? Globetrotters Share Their Fears,” focusing on travelers’ fears of Islamic extremism in the Middle East.
Following complaints from readers, NPR removed the map and apologized, stating that “the map had a number of errors. The countries of Cyprus, Israel, and Turkey were either not shown or not labelled; the label for ‘Palestine’ should have read ‘Palestinian territories’; and Afghanistan and Pakistan were mistakenly included. NPR apologizes for these errors.”
In November 2015, CNN made a similar error in the article “Beyond ISIS: 2016’s scariest geopolitical hot spots,” excluding Israel from a map that accompanied the article and labelling the region “Palestina.”
Although the image was selected from the iStock collection of Getty Images, CNN received criticism for choosing that particular image over others. Following complaints and the publication of a post on the omission by the HonestReporting media watchdog, CNN removed the map.
