Screen capture shows the original Reuters title On February 18, Reuters showed a number of Iranian girls practicing martial arts in a city near Tehran, claiming Iran was training more than 3,000 female ninjas to kill any possible foreign invaders .
The report claimed that the athletes are undercover assassins in the service of the Islamic Republic.
Following Press TV’s contact with the Tehran office of the British news agency, Reuters posted an advisory with some corrections on February 26 but refused to apologize for slander.
Editor-in-chief Stephen J. Adler said that the error “was promptly corrected the same day it came to our attention,” but failed to mention the eight-day interval between the first publication of the story and the posting of the advisory with minor corrections.
During the eight-day interval, the distorted Reuters report was picked up by other British media outlets, thus adding to the damage already caused by the misleading report.
The advisory was posted in Reuters Video Point, which is an accompanying website for Reuters broadcast video service.
The athletes have condemned the report, saying the misleading report can definitely be a problem to their professional sport career.
“It can harm our chances to travel to other countries to take part in global tournaments and international championships because Reuters is considered by many to be a reliable source,” Raheleh Davoudzadeh said.
Akbar Faraji, who established Ninjutsu in Iran over 22 years ago, condemned the British media accusations, saying his students will pursue their legal action against Reuters to the end.
“We have filed a defamation lawsuit against Reuters and we intend to pursue it as far as necessary because it is a matter of reputation,” he said.