Israel Is Forever: Special feature to the Calling Out Community, Posted January 28, 2016.

Following National Public Radio’s (NPR) online publication this week of an illustrative map – which erroneously deleted Israel and replaced its geographic region with the label “Palestine”-  NPR ombudsman Elizabeth Jensen quickly issued a statement explaining how the errors came to be, apologizing for the same on behalf of the 900-station radio network, and citing media watchdog HonestReporting’s role in fixing the situation:

“The map portion of the illustration had a number of mistakes, the most notable being that Israel was labeled as “Palestine.” There were other errors, as well, as an editor’s note details. After the online pro-Israel publication HonestReporting posted a report that focused on the exclusion of Israel, critical emails began coming in. NPR’s editors moved swiftly to remove the map Sunday evening, as they should have.

“I asked Marc Silver, the blog’s editor, how the errors came about. He told me by email: “The artist doing the illustration for this post added the map element. It was one of many elements in his illustration depicting what world travelers perceive as potential risks when they are abroad. We should have carefully reviewed each map label for inaccuracies and omissions and failed to do so.”

“NPR has worked with the illustrator, Patric Sandri, once before and his portfolio includes work for The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and Bloomberg News, among others, Silver said. He added that Sandri used his own sources for the map but NPR takes “responsibility for these errors because of our failure to check the map carefully.”

“I heard back from an apologetic Sandri Tuesday. He said by email that, “it was not my political intention to draw the map that way at all,” calling it a mistake that happened because “I had a very short time for creating the illustration. If you work under time pressure mistakes can happen.” He added that he was surprised that the NPR staff did not catch the mistakes themselves, and said they should have double-checked, as well; “They approved everything and really liked the illustration. I only had to change small details.”

The Calling Out Community commends NPR and its ombudsman for showing excellence in customer care, as well as journalistic and editorial integrity in identifying the problem as important and acting swiftly to removing the offending map.  However, they even went a step above with their explanation today and we encourage all who were concerned to now thank NPR for an excellent job well done.  

And we are eternally grateful to HonestReporting for once again standing up for Israel, even when it seems the whole world is against Her.  God will truly bless you for your efforts on behalf of His chosen people.