The NZ Media Council has found that an opinion piece written by Damien Grant contained a significant factual inaccuracy.
However, the Council agreed with Dr Ali that the statement: “The worst intentional crime committed by Israel is to buy land off West Bank farmers and build houses” was inaccurate. The word “buy” is problematic.
The vast balance of opinion is that a lot of the land acquired by Israelis in the occupied territories was not purchased from Palestinians in the usual sense of an agreement and payment of money. It is inaccurate to describe the West Bank and/or the territories as having been bought off the Palestinians.
The Media Council said that Stuff, to their credit, published a correction and explanation, changing the word “buy” to “acquire”.
Let’s assume that the word acquire should have been used instead of buy. It is still interesting that a one word inaccuracy can get a negative finding by the Press Council. Will this standard be applied to all opinion columns in future? If so, I think they will be very busy.
And whether buy is inaccurate is highly debatable – it is a contentious topic, not an undisputed fact.
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.
4 comments:
The word “buy” is an extremely dishonest characterisation of the situation.
Words matter David.
Buy and acquire are nowhere near the same in the context of the Israeli settlement problem.
If I was cynical(OK I am) I would see this as an attempt to justify the Israeli actions.
Ho Hum. Its the cause du jour.
If only the media council were as honest about other contentious issues...
Words matter and you should know this because you write opinion pieces all the time. According to the BBC, The US has announced sanctions and has said that settlers "used physical aggression, threatened families at gunpoint, and destroyed property as part of a targeted and calculated effort to displace Palestinian communities". Settlers deny the allegations, and said that the Israeli government was on their side. But the settler outposts are illegal under Israeli law - if they are fine why would the be illegal?.
I don't remember one occupation in which the occupier presented himself as the victim, we are the victims, we are forced to kill their children, poor us.” ~ Israeli journalist Gideon Levy
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