Upheld over one word being wrong

The Media Council released:

The NZ Media Council has found that an opinion piece written by Damien Grant contained a significant factual inaccuracy.

However, the Council agreed with Dr Ali that the statement: “The worst intentional crime committed by Israel is to buy land off West Bank farmers and build houses” was inaccurate. The word “buy” is problematic.

The vast balance of opinion is that a lot of the land acquired by Israelis in the occupied territories was not purchased from Palestinians in the usual sense of an agreement and payment of money. It is inaccurate to describe the West Bank and/or the territories as having been bought off the Palestinians.

The Media Council said that Stuff, to their credit, published a correction and explanation, changing the word “buy” to “acquire”.

Let’s assume that the word acquire should have been used instead of buy. It is still interesting that a one word inaccuracy can get a negative finding by the Press Council. Will this standard be applied to all opinion columns in future? If so, I think they will be very busy.

And whether buy is inaccurate is highly debatable – it is a contentious topic, not an undisputed fact.