Back in December 2011, the Financial Times refused to correct an error during an email exchange with HonestReporting. Covering the 24th anniversary “celebrations” of Hamas, the paper reported Hamas boasts of killing 1365 “Zionist soldiers” taking the statement to mean “Israeli soldiers”.
Despite the fact that other media and Hamas itself understood the figure to include Israeli civilians and military personnel alike, the FT simply refused to acknowledge this despite HR providing the FT with crystal-clear statistical evidence to back this up.
The FT told us that “we don’t feel a correction is warranted” and “Hamas was clearly not talking about civilians.”
Related content: FT Hamas Shocker: “We Don’t Feel a Correction Was Warranted”
While we usually encourage our subscribers to take action, in this case, as the issue had arisen as a result of a direct exchange between HR and the FT, we decided, on a matter of principle, to take matters further. Both on behalf of the victims of Hamas terror and to see for ourselves whether the official channels of complaint would actually work against a UK media outlet, we submitted a formal complaint to the UK’s Press Complaints Commission (PCC) made in the name of an individual (HR Managing Editor Simon Plosker) rather than an organization.
Some two months later, here is the result (registration required) (also on Page 12 of the FT’s Mideast print edition of February 29):
But what did it take just to get this simple correction?
