Even the New York Times admits that it made an error by publishing an article that claimed there is doubt as to the existence of the ancient Jewish temples on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. The New York Times issued a correction clearly stating that the debate is about the precise location of the Temples within the contested area and not about whether they were there at all. (For more on the article, read our analysis.)
Jodi Rudoren, the Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief, even clarified some of the issues in a post on Facebook:
Before Israel became a state in 1948, Islamic guidebooks to the Old City holy site revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary said the location of King Solomon’s Temple at the compound was “beyond dispute.” All reference to the ancient Jewish temples were later removed from such pamphlets, and as the struggle over control of the compound has grown more furious in recent years, Palestinian denial of the temples’ existence has also increased. My colleague Rick Gladstone explored the question in this excellent piece, finding consensus among scholars that the two temples were there, but no actual archaeological evidence — though the Islamic authorities have blocked digging that could turn it up.
While we strongly disagree with her characterization of the article as “excellent,” we commend her for getting the facts out about the “consensus” of opinion regarding the temples.
However, we said earlier that the damage has already been done because far more people will have read the original piece — in which the existence of the temples is questioned — than will have seen the correction.
And the way news spreads through the Internet guarantees that once a major publication publishes an error, no correction will be able to stop it from spreading. The Irish Times has now republished the original New York Times story without the correction.
Even worse, they have added their own sub-headline stating as a fact that “no one really knows” whether the temples were on the Temple Mount. Perhaps they should ask any of the experts who are used as sources in the very article written below their factually inaccurate headline.
Unfortunately, odds are against the Irish Times being the only ones to spread this falsehood.
The media need to get the story right BEFORE it is put online for the world to see. Otherwise there is no stopping the “ripple” effect.
