The New York Times Web site and the Boston Globe newspaper were just two among other media that ran a distorted Associated Press article from March 31, 2004 about Jewish purchase of property in the Silwan neighborhood of Jerusalem. Written by Ravi Nessman, the AP article took an overtly partisan stance regarding the day’s events in Silwan.
CAMERA has obtained the following correction from the Los Angeles Times:
Jewish settlements - An article in Saturday's Section A about the Israeli foreign minister's visit to Washington misstated a commitment Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made at a June summit in Aqaba, Jordan. Sharon agreed to dismantle some illegal outposts of Jewish settlements; he did not agree to begin dismantling settlements themselves.
A Christian Science Monitor article treats the Israeli victims of a terrorist attack as an afterthought. To the Monitor, the tragedy seems to be -- not that two civilians were killed -- but that the suicide bombers “threatened to undermine the Palestinian Authority’s campaign to stop Israel’s barrier.”
In a June 6, 2003 broadcast riddled with factual errors and misrepresentations, PBS’s “NOW with Bill Moyers” spotlighted Israeli settlements, their role in the ongoing conflict, and their possible funding via fungible American taxpayer dollars to Israel.
On Dec. 24, 2002, then Los Angeles Times Jerusalem bureau chief Tracy Wilkinson repeated a common error among journalists reporting from Israel and the Palestinian areas. The inaccuracy dragged CAMERA and Times editors down a long road of correspondences, which did not, unfortunately, lead to a published correction. The saga says something about the Times' unwillingness in the face of evidence to set the record straight.
The subject of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza has long provoked severely distorted coverage. Regardless of differing political views on settlement policy, information about the much-reported issue should be factual and balanced.