Media gets it wrong on Arab saints

byHabib Battah
May 17, 2015

From New York Times to The Telegraph, to The Jerusalem Post, news outlets around the world are erroneously claiming that two Palestinian nuns are the “first Arabic-speaking” saints:

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The New York Times is one of the few publications to issue a correction:

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I guess none of the editors did much research because Lebanon alone has at least 4 saints. And if you live in Lebanon, you’ll never miss them!

Highway sign identifying major Lebanese saints, near Batroun, North Lebanon

Tags:
saints

Habib Battah

Habib Battah is an investigative journalist and founder of the news site beirutreport.com. Battah has covered Lebanon and the Middle East for over 15 years and teaches journalism and media studies at the American University of Beirut. He is a contributor to Monocle, The Guardian, BBC World, Al Jazeera and others, a former fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University and two-time recipient of the Samir Kassir Press Freedom Award. Battah's investigative work was recently recognized for outstanding local reporting by the Columbia University Oakes Award for Environmental Reporting. Battah earned a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.A. in Near East Studies and Journalism from New York University.