Berlin - A German news television channel, N-TV, admitted Monday it had mistakenly aired news footage from Nepal on one day during news coverage of protests by Tibetans against Chinese rule. Separately, a website owned by another German channel, RTL, admitted that the caption of one still photograph taken in Nepal had been erroneous. On Sunday, the Chinese news agency Xinhua had accused Western media of false reporting on the violence.
N-TV said that a still photograph and a video sequence shown on March 20 in a report about Tibet had in fact been taken in Nepal. It said editors had noticed the error and subsequently replaced the images.
"We are extremely sorry," an N-TV spokesman said in Cologne.
RTL's website, RTLaktuell.de, said late Sunday, "It's true that amid our detailed reporting on the Tibet conflict, there was one case where a picture was displayed in the wrong context.
"The picture actually shows security forces in Nepal. It was taken on March 17 in the capital Kathmandu while Nepalese security forces were responding with truncheons to demonstrators protesting against Chinese policies in Tibet.
"We erroneously created the impression that the scene was of the unrest in Tibet and showed Chinese security forces.
"We apologize for this error, while pointing out that RTLaktuell.de reports without bias," the news site said.
There were nearly 100 online comments next to the statement, many from web users with Chinese names and pro-Beijing views.
