The New York Times responded swiftly to pressure last week from Israel and its supporters.
When the paper published an opinion piece about the new hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners, “a rash of readers” objected, according to Liz Spayd, its public editor – who insulted with her word choice even as she backed their case.
The readers were angered, she suggested, by a “distorted characterization” of Marwan Barghouti, the article’s author.
When the piece was originally published online a week ago Sunday, Barghouti was described at the end as a “Palestinian leader and parliamentarian.” After complaints, an editor’s note was appended the following day, stating that Barghouti had been convicted in an Israeli court on “five counts of murder and membership of a terrorist organization.”