Israeli reporter suspended after false story on Disney abduction
Published May 1, 2012
JERUSALEM (JTA) — An Israeli reporter was suspended after reporting on an unfounded story that an Israeli girl was briefly abducted at Disney World in Orlando.
Sivan Cohen of Israel’s Channel 10 reported during Sunday’s news broadcast that the incident that she said “sounds like an urban legend” occurred over Passover. She reported that a 9-year-old Israeli girl was taken from her parents and was later found using security camera tapes in a bathroom stall drugged and with her head shaved.
On Monday night the station confirmed on the evening news that the story was false and that the reporter had been “mislead” by a source, one of the allegedly abducted girl’s parents. The story was not confirmed by Disney.
The hoax reportedly is well-known in the United States.
“Cohen has been suspended until the examination into the circumstances that led to the story airing is concluded,” the channel said in a statement.
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