Accuracy and accountability are among the most important tenets of journalism. In combination, they mean media organizations are expected to publish or broadcast forthright corrections after sharing inaccurate information. The following corrections are among the many prompted by CAMERA’s communication with reporters and editors.
An AP "fact check" report is unironically headlined: "Misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war. Here are the facts." Far from supplying the facts, today's "fact check" conceals known facts, bringing us back to the worst of last week's coverage of Hamas' Al Ahli hospital misinformation campaign.
Like an unshakeable addiction, the impulse of mainstream journalists to conceal the terror affiliations of Palestinians killed by Israeli troops remains a persistent feature of reporting at major news outlets. Most recently, Islamic Jihad and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades fighters get a pass at AP and The New York Times.
In a video unveiling a new long-range attack drone, Iran warns in Hebrew and Persian "Prepare your shelters." AP completely ignores that threat, and reports with no qualification that President Raisi "reiterated Iran's stance about friendly relations with 'all countries in the world,'"
After first reporting that no information was immediately available to ascertain whether a Palestinian killed today in Jenin was affiliated with a terror group, AP commendably updates: Mustafa al-Kastouni was a fighter with Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.
Ashraf Ibrahim, killed in a gunbattle with Israeli troops, was a Palestinian intelligence officer. He also moonlighted as a fighter with the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a designated terrorist organization affiliated with Fatah. News stories reported the former work while leaving out the latter.
CAMERA prompts quick improvements after AP initially buried the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade affiliation of three fighters killed this morning near Nablus and underreported the number of combatants killed earlier this month in Gaza.
CAMERA prompts improvement of AP captions about a Palestinian killed at a checkpoint after the texts initially omitted the army's information that Abdullah Qalalweh attempted to attack a soldier and ignored warning shots to retreat.
AP's "clarifying" 2022 photos essay throws the news agency's anti-Israel obsession into sharp relief, putting clashes during Shireen Abu Akleh's funeral ahead of iconic Ukraine war images, leaving Iran out of the frame, and recasting an Islamic Jihad commander as a victim.
Several hours after Tiran Fero's family reported that Palestinian gunmen killed the Israeli Druze high schooler by unhooking his ventilator in a Jenin hospital, leading media outlets continued to ignore their account. And then CAMERA stepped in.