Iran jury finds Reuters guilty

An Iranian jury voted on Sunday to convict the Reuters news organization over a video script that contained an error, Iran’s Press TV reported.

A Reuters story states, “Reuters, the news arm of Thomson Reuters, the global news and information group, corrected the story after the martial arts club where the video was filmed made a complaint. Reuters also apologised for the error.

“The story’s headline, ‘Thousands of female Ninjas train as Iran’s assassins’, was corrected to read ‘Three thousand women Ninjas train in Iran’.

“Reuters’ Bureau Chief in Iran, Iranian national Parisa Hafezi, was subsequently charged on several counts including spreading lies and propaganda against the establishment. She was banned from travelling, and her passport was confiscated.

“As bureau chief, Hafezi formally leads Reuters’ Iran operations, but is only responsible for the text stories written by the bureau, not the visuals, captions or scripts produced by the television journalists or photographers.

“Reuters Editor-in-Chief Stephen J. Adler said in March the company had conducted an internal review after the incorrect TV script was published and had taken steps to prevent a recurrence.

“‘Reuters always strives for the highest standards in journalism and our policy is to acknowledge errors honestly and correct them promptly when they occur,’ he added.”

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