HR Success: Newsweek Apologizes, Retracts Two Biased Articles

In the space of two weeks, HonestReporting critiqued two articles (one and two) written by Tom O’Connor for Newsweek. That O’Connor was responsible for the following tweet referencing Israeli “apartheid” should have raised flags concerning his ability to report in a fair and accurate manner on Israel:

Nice, so when does “birthright” include #Palestinians ? #Apartheid #Israelhttp://t.co/tBVQo0G8Qr

— Tom Roggio O’Connor (@ShaolinTom) January 23, 2014

HonestReporting contacted Newsweek editors and asked them to read our detailed critiques that systematically took apart O’Connor’s reporting.

Newsweek agreed with us, tweeting the following:

Newsweek has retracted 2 stories that did not conform to editorial standards. We apologize for the errors. For more: https://t.co/j0RlI7GVcW

— Newsweek (@Newsweek) July 7, 2017

Indeed, Newsweek has retracted both stories and apologized.

While it is clearly an issue that both of these stories were published in the first instance, Newsweek deserves credit for publicly taking remedial action and acknowledging the errors. In correspondence with HonestReporting, Newsweek’s Global Editor-in-Chief Matt McAllester expressed his commitment to maintaining Newsweek’s standards and, in this case, he has clearly done so.

Tom O’Connor has subsequently deleted his prejudicial tweet. That his bias has been exposed and two of his articles retracted represents a serious blow to his credibility. It remains to be seen whether O’Connor will be trusted in future to report on Israeli stories.

Newsweek’s retractions and apology represent a significant success for HonestReporting, once again demonstrating our credibility with major media outlets and our ability to get concrete results in improving media coverage of Israel.