Yesterday I posted a piece about a ‘purge’ at the HaAretz Newspaper.

Before posting this wouldn’t it been a good idea to check some of Corrigan’s assertions to check if they are indeed true? For example would it hurt to check if Gideon Levy’s column was there or not, in last Fridays paper? Check it for yourself or just click on http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/988412.html.

Some other items readers may find relevant in judging the value of Corrigan’s fact checking and analysis:

• The new German investors viz DuMont Schauberg only own 25 per cent proportion of the paper which they bought in 2006. Their major influence is in forcing general cutbacks (something common to newspapers around the world); they don’t care too much about the politics.

• Amira Hass is on sabbatical leave at her own request. She told that to Dorothy Naor of the Israeli organisation New Profile. Check their website http://www.newprofile.org/default.asp?language=en to assess Dr Naor’s credibility for yourself.

• Several reporters left/were sacked at the time the new editor, Dov Alfon, took over. This is again fairly normal. According to Ice News, a professional Hebrew media industry newsletter, http://www.ice.co.il/article.asp?catId=2&pgId=120831, the reporters were associated with the outgoing editor David Landau. Only one of these, Meron Rapoport would be familiar to readers who follow the conflict.

• As media monitor who has been reading every single item of Eldar’s work in both English and Hebrew I have not noticed any change in his output..

I contacted Gideon Levy and he verified that his column has NOT been trashed.

As I said in my own comment answering Mr. Salbe; ‘Perhaps I ‘jumped the gun’ on this one…. if so, I apologize to my readers for publishing wrong information.

Thank you to Sol Salbe for bringing this to my attention.’

So, to my readers, my humble apologies. This was a mistake and every attempt will be made to insure it never happens again.

I must add that I am very pleased the information was not correct