At End of 2013, Ha’aretz Drops Ball on Depo-Provera Story

 
In an end of the year round up, “Most read-stories of 2013,” Ha’aretz drops the ball on the Ethiopian contraception story which had alleged that Ethiopian women were coerced into receiving Depo-Provera injections, repeating errors that the very same news outlet corrected back in March.
 
About the fifth top story, which garnered 19,817 Facebook likes and 3,623 Tweets (as of this writing), Mairav Zonszein wrote:
 
 
Zonszein, and the article which she summarizes, both provide a truncated version of Health Ministry director-general Prof. Roni Gamzu’s directive to health-maintenance organizations. It leaves out his key statement that the ministry does not confirm any allegations surrounding the scandal, as well as the fact that his directive applies to women of all origins. As reported in the Hebrew version of the same Jan. 27, 2013 article, and again in Ha’aretz‘s Feb. 28, 2013 Hebrew (but not English) article on the controversy, Gamzu actually wrote (CAMERA’s translation):
Without taking a stand or determining facts about allegations that were made,” Gamzu wrote, “I would like to instruct, from now on, all gynecologists in the HMOs not to renew prescriptions for Depo-Provero for women of Ethiopian — or any other — origin, if there is the slightest doubt that they have not understood the implications of the treatments.” (Emphasis added on the key statements omitted by Zonszein).
In response to CAMERA’s earlier communication with editors about the distorted rendering of Gamzu’s letter which appeared again in the Feb. 28 article, Ha’aretz commendably published the following correction on March 7:
 
 
In addition, the correction was also appended to the online article of Feb. 28:
 
 
Unfortunately, unlike the Feb. 28 article, which was fully corrected, the original erroneous Jan. 27 article was never corrected either in print or online, and it continues to misinform even Ha’aretz‘s own writers.

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