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.
CAMERA prompts corrections in both English and Hebrew after Haaretz wrongly reported that Israeli defense officials had estimated that 300 were killed in the Israeli airstrike which targeted Hassan Nasrallah. In fact, an early Israeli estimated cited 300 casualties (not fatalities) and Lebanese officials cited six fatalities.
Haaretz had initially reported Hamas' unsubstantiated claim that Israeli hostages were killed during the successful June 8 rescue operation without noting the IDF denial.
In this second correction of an English-language mistranslation this week, Haaretz clarifies in print and online that an Israeli airstrike did not hit the Rafah tent encampment where secondary explosions started a deadly fire.
CAMERA prompts correction after Haaretz erroneously reported in English (and not Hebrew) that Israel closed the Rafah Crossing. Egypt, not Israel, closed the Gaza-Egypt crossing.
Haaretz's English edition amends an article which had failed to identify Palestinian gunmen as responsible for the fatal West Bank shootings of east Jerusalem Arabs, leaving readers to wrongly assume that Israeli settlers were the culprits.
Haaretz amends after falsely reporting that Netanyahu's statements about the possibility of deporting Hamas leadership applied to Gaza residents, a fallacious claim which provided tailwind to South Africa's unfounded genocide charge.
Even as international media outlets answered the call to improve coverage of Palestinian fatalities by noting that those killed by Israeli fire in Jenin last week were confirmed combatants, Israeli daily Haaretz failed to update its English and Hebrew-language reports with this highly relevant information.
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.
While Times of Israel and BBC Arabic commendably improved their respective articles after initially failing to report that slain Palestinian teen Jibril Muhammad Ladaa was a Hamas fighter, Haaretz, Reuters and AFP have yet to add the key information.
CAMERA prompts correction after Haaretz's English edition erroneously stated that a Palestinian gunman fired on two Israeli men. In fact, the Huwara gunman fired on David and Rachel Stern, a husband and wife couple.