Reporter Confuses Star Wars’ Rebel Alliance with al-Qaeda

By SM Gibson at theantimedia.org

Spain – A Spanish reporter for TVE’s morning news show, La Mañana, demonstrated the “Force” was most certainly not with him as he delivered an on-air report about France’s airstrikes against Syria following the Paris attacks. On Monday, Jota Abril discussed French retaliatory bombardments live on state television, and a graphic appeared behind him meant to depict the insignias of terror groups al-Qaeda and ISIS. Instead, what people saw was the logo for the Rebel Alliance from Star Wars.

“[Raqqa] was one of the first cities taken in 2013 by terrorist groups, but terrorist groups from al-Qaeda,” he said, pointing to the image.

Another Spanish reporter picked up the blunder, which prompted Abril to take to his Twitter account to apologize for the misreport. “This morning I confused a logo in an explanation during the programme. My own fault. I am sorry if it offended anyone,” he said.

While accusing Luke Skywalker of being a member of al-Qaeda might seem like a minor error in reporting to most, it is a detail most 12-year-olds would catch. How a production team overlooked such a discrepancy is more than a little troubling considering people rely on these same reporters to relay world events back to them.

A good rule for all newscasters in the future should be: if you don’t know the difference between jihad and Jedi, you shouldn’t be empowered with keeping the public informed.

One thing is certain—if the Rebel Alliance were a real thing, they would undoubtedly be classified a terrorist organization by our governments.

Spanish state broadcaster TVE used Star Wars Rebel Alliance logo for Al Qaeda this morning. https://t.co/7k7v0kqfTRpic.twitter.com/709MBvaZFk — Matthew Bennett (@matthewbennett) November 16, 2015

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