It took the New York Times nearly two weeks to correct an erroneous, one-sided article on evictions in Jerusalem, and the overdue editor’s note ended up being more than 300 words long.
The article, titled “Evictions in Walled Old City Stir Up a ‘Hornet’s Nest,'” attempted to detail how seven Palestinian families living in the Khaldiyya Ascent, “a narrow cobblestone alley in Jerusalem’s walled Old City,” now face eviction by Israeli authorities.
As it turns out, the article, which went online on Jan. 14 and appeared in print on Jan. 15, was shot through with errors.
“The Jerusalem Journal article on Jan. 15 about Palestinian residents of Jerusalem’s Old City who face eviction by Israeli organizations gave an incomplete description of the legal disputes in several cases,” the Times said in a note of correction that appeared 12 days after the article first appeared online.
“The descriptions were based on the tenants’ accounts; the article should have included additional information from court documents or from the landlords. (The landlords are organizations that have reclaimed properties owned by Jews before Israel was established in 1948),” it added.
The lengthy note continued:
In the case of Nazira Maswadi, the article said her new landlord was trying to evict her based on a claim that her estranged husband was dead (he is still alive). In fact, the landlord claims in court filings that the Maswadi family has not proved that it has paid rent. In another case, the article quoted Nawal Hashimeh as saying she was being evicted for replacing a door to her apartment.
But according to court documents, her rent payments had also been rejected because they were submitted by her son, whom the landlord said it had no contractual relationship with. (The landlord also claimed that three rent checks fell short of the amount owed.) In a separate case, the article said Nora Sub Laban faced accusations that she had not continuously lived in her apartment, though she claimed that she had never left it.
While the article said that Ms. Sub Laban had been battling eviction efforts for four decades and that the Israeli Supreme Court must now decide whether to consider her appeal, it should have noted that an Israeli court in 2014 upheld a lowercourt finding that she had not returned to live at the property after renovations were completed in 2000 or 2001. While the reporter tried to reach representatives of the landlord in the Sub Laban case, The Times should also have tried to reach the landlords involved in the other cases and their lawyers.
In short, the Times reporter, Diaa Hadid, and her editors published an entire story on the say-so of one party, and failed to double-check the basic claims that they rushed to print.
