Last month, we complained to editors at the Scottish newspaper The Press and Journal about an op-ed (“Catherine Deveney: Young women in Gaza still dream of peace against all odds – but they need our help”) that included the following:
Thousands of ordinary Palestinian families were brutally displaced as Israelis seized homes in Sheikh Jarrah, and clashes there continue.
Though the wording was a bit ambiguous, it appeared as if the author was claiming that “thousands” of Palestinians had been “brutally displaced” in Sheikh Jarrah. As we argued in our complaint, during the May conflict, no Palestinian homes in the east Jerusalem neighborhood were “seized”. It was only a dozen families who even faced the possibility of future eviction, depending on an upcoming Israeli Supreme Court decision.
After a few email exchanges with the editor, it became clear the the author conflated the situation in Sheikh Jarrah with Gaza, and that it was the latter she was referring to.
So, the sentence was revised thusly:
Thousands of ordinary Palestinian families have been brutally displaced in Gaza, and clashes there continue.
I trust they the so called ‘reporter’ back on tea making duty as the person obviously has no journalism or geography skills but is good at displaying their own personal brand of Jew hatred.
#journalismisdead
The Aberdeen Press and Journal has taken advantage of the situation by printing inaccurate sensationalism because they could and it would likely be unquestioned. Editorial integrity seems non existent.
But no apology for misinforming its readers about Sheik Jarrah or telling them about the truth there. And probably no mention of the 4,000+ rockets fired at civilian targets in Israel or of the Hamas policy of embedding rocket pads and other weaponry in civilian areas.