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CNN's Online Photo Blunder Causes Anger in Serbia

by Yuliya Talmazan | December 18, 2008 at 09:59 am

328 views | 29 Recommendations | 4 comments

In the article that CNN published about suspect Serbian war criminal Ratko Mladic on its website earlier this month, the agency mistakenly used the photo of Tomislav Nikolic, the current leader of the Serbian Progressive Party, instead of the ill-known Mladic. It is alleged Nikolic wants to sue CNN over this mistake, which he views as intentional.

While it is admittable that the two men look somewhat alike, one would expect that a news organization of high caliber, such as CNN presents itself to be, would double check the accuracy of visuals on their website.

No one noticed the mistake for nearly a week until it was brought to CNN’s attention that the man in the photo was not Mladic. CNN has already apologized and posted this correction notice on their website:

(CNN) -- On December 4, CNN.com featured a photo showing an image of Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic surrounded by pre-election posters showing Serbian Progressive Party President Tomislav Nikolic in Belgrade. We cropped the image to show only Nikolic, but a caption referencing the police's ongoing hunt for Mladic misleadingly implied this was Mladic.

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CNN, popular American TV Network cannot tell the difference between Ratko Mladic and Tomislav Nikolic, it seems. The Americans have published an extensive article on their web site, about the search of Ratko Mladic`s Belgrade home, but the article was accompanied with an image of Tomislav Nikolic, president of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), depicting a poster from his presidential campaign entitled “With All Hart for Serbia”.

some in Serbia believe that Nikolic is making too big a story of this.

“If this kind of mistake had happened six months ago, Mr Nikolic wouldn’t have minded, because Ratko Mladic six months ago was his favourite character, just like Karadzic and others who need to be in The Hague,” says Nadezda Gace, President of the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia. “They were all defended by the Radical Party. But now there’s been a split within the Radical Party and now Nikolic finds it offensive because he suddenly wants to be a pro-European politician”.

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politisite

at 14:49 on December 18th, 2008

I have worked with CNN. They are a professional group. I doubt this was intentional. They do need to double check these things as this man does have good reason to be upset.

I think I have searched for File footage and got the name wrong or worse used a picture of someone with the same name.

Art_By_Alida

at 18:41 on December 18th, 2008

When I see news like this, it only reinforces my belief that even huge media sources can make mistakes with possible far reaching implications. You really can't believe everything you see or read in the media without questioning if it is really the truth...humans err. It's a fact.