WSJ can’t confirm earlier story about UN agency in Palestine

The Wall Street Journal can’t confirm a January story it published about the UN agency for Palestinians, reports Maxwell Tani of Semafor.

Tani reports, “But months later, the paper’s top editor overseeing standards privately made an admission: The paper didn’t know — and still doesn’t know —whether the allegation, based on Israeli intelligence reports, was true.

“‘The fact that the Israeli claims haven’t been backed up by solid evidence doesn’t mean our reporting was inaccurate or misleading, that we have walked it back or that there is a correctable error here,’ Elena Cherney, the chief news editor, wrote in an email earlier this year seen by Semafor.

“That one of the paper’s biggest and most impactful stories about the war was based on information it could not verify is a startling acknowledgement, and calls into question the validity of the claims as reported in the Journal. The piece had major reverberations internally and raised serious concerns among some staff. According to three people familiar with the situation, since the story was published earlier this year, reporters have tried and failed to corroborate the 10% claim at the center of the story. Journalists working on the Middle East coverage for the Journal have also since raised concerns about elements of the paper’s coverage of the war more broadly that some feel tip too heavily toward Israel.”

Read more here.