The New York Times published an op-ed by convicted Fatah terrorist Marwan Barghouti on Sunday without disclosing the nature of his conviction—writing simply that he was serving time in an Israeli prison. His byline described Barghouti as a “Palestinian leader and parliamentarian.” He wrote about the state of Israel’s prisons and detailed the cause of an on-going strike within their walls.
The omission prompted questions from other members of the press, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who slammed the newspaper for giving a platform to a convicted terrorist.
Netanyahu said that calling him a “Palestinian leader and parliamentarian” was akin to calling Syria’s Assad a “pediatrician.”
“These are murderers, these are terrorists and we will not lose clarity,” he added.
Following complaints, the Times’ public editor Liz Spayd challenged her own newspaper over its failure to disclose his conviction for orchestrating a terror attack that killed five Israeli civilians in 2004.
Spayd’s online column, titled “An Op-Ed Author omits His Crimes, and The Times Does Too” is a scathing criticism of the organ’s mistake. In her article, she notes the backlash the Times received for publishing the piece.
“[A] rash of readers have objected — in emails to me and on social media — to what they say was The Times’s distorted characterization of Barghouti,” she wrote, citing correspondence from readers—several of which stated that the Times and the media “contribute to the degradation of journalism” every time they publish misleading articles.
Spayd says that the issue isn’t a new one for the NYT’s Opinion section, which has had to deal with this problem before. She says that the editors of the section need to “fully identify the biography and credentials of authors, especially details that help people make judgments about the opinions they’re reading.”
The Times has since added added a clarification to the foot of Barghouti’s article, identifying his convictions for murder and membership of a terrorist organization.
Ian Miles Cheong is a journalist and outspoken media critic. You can reach him through social media at @stillgray on Twitter and on Facebook.
