AFP Fails to Correct IDF Fatalities in Jenin
Oct. 15 Update: AFP Corrects Number of IDF Fatalities in Jenin
Agence France Presse, an influential news agency, on Sunday understated the number of 13 Israeli soldiers killed in Jenin in April 2002. The Sept. 24 article (“Israel minister wants probe of Arab filmmaker over Lebanon remarks“) erred, stating that Israeli filmmaker Mohammed
Bakri enraged the Israeli establishment and Jewish public with his documentary film “Jenin, Jenin” about April 2002 clashes in which 52 Palestinians and 13 Israeli soldiers were killed.
As AFP itself repeatedly reported at the time, 23 Israeli soldiers were killed during those battles. An April 24, 2002 article, for example, accurately reported (“Israeli president tells world to stop using ‘double standards'”):
Israel lost 23 soldiers in the nine-day battle which broke out on April 3 when the army invaded the camp in search of hardline militants and suicide bombers.
CAMERA notified AFP editors of the error yesterday. As of this writing the wire service has yet to issue a correction despite the fact that the first of the agency’s “Ten guiding principles” states:
AFP journalists are expected to provide accurate, balanced and impartial news coverage, and to correct errors quickly and transparently.
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