On Aug. 25, we contacted editors at The National (0f Scotland) over a claim in a piece by their foreign editor David Pratt (“In Gaza there is no new normal … just the same old hell haunted by death”, Aug. 21) that “Neither chemotherapy nor radiology treatments are available due to Israeli restrictions on medication entering the strip”.
Despite providing sources to refute their allegation, as well as an email by COGAT flatly denying the charge, and sending several follow up emails, we didn’t receive a reply, which prompted us to take our complaint to IPSO – an independent regulator of the newspaper and magazine industry in the UK.
After a series of communications over nearly three months between CAMERA UK, IPSO and the newspaper, which included their editor citing a source which – upon examination – linked to a report (from 2009) that clearly didn’t back up their allegation, they finally agreed to retract the claim, and published the following editor’s note:
Just wondering. Was Save the Children contacted regarding its inaccurate press release? And if so, did they apologise and issue a retraction?
That’s a good point. No, they weren’t contacted. But, we passed the info to NGO Monitor, who, as you likely know, monitors and holds such NGOs accountable to such lies. Perhaps, they’ll contact StC.