Little is unknown in what follows below, but I can benefit from terrible reminders of what I know.
From Elazar Stern’s autobiography, “Struggling over Israel’s Soul: An IDF General Speaks of His Controversial Moral Decisions” p. 302-306.
In March 2001 Yediot Aharonot made up a false quote from Elazar Stern in a Knesset committee that “more than 50 percent of all young immigrants who serve in the army are not Jewish and therefore their motivation to enlist into field units of the army is naturally weaker”.
True or not, I have no idea, but Stern was furious. Two weeks later he got a meeting with the newspaper’s editor at the time, Moshe Vardi.
Quoting:
… I told the people in the room that I heard that this was the room where prime ministers were crowned, but, since I had no intention to become one, I intended to see this matter through till the end, and I explained why. My wife, Dorit, was the director of a retirement home in the town of Tivon at the time, and most of her staff consisted of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. They were very fond of her and many of them had visited our home more than once. But ever since the newspaper had published my false quote, they hardly gave her the time of day. “Even if it means a five-year-long battle in court,” I said, “I am determined to do what must be done!”
…
I demanded that they publish an article on the same page and of the same size that would make it clear to everyone that I never said the things that were published under my name. I said that I realize that it might be too much to expect that an apology headline be the same size as that of the original offensive article. Instead, I suggested that they send a correspondent to the Knesset right away. The chief of staff was scheduled to appear in front of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, and I knew that he was going to say some things about this issue. If this happened and the chief of staff was asked a direct question on what the newspaper published, he might supply them with a headline that I would regard as sufficient.
Why did they do it in the first place? Why can’t they retract?
His friends didn’t believe even this much would happen, but after a few hours’ consideration, the liars agreed and even allowed him to see the corrective article before it was published.
Of interest, Stern needed a personal favor from then-Knesset chairman, Avraham Burg (an old school friend of his) just to get the full, official transcript of the Knesset committee session as evidence in time for the meeting!
And Stern arranged the meeting through the army spokesman; perhaps civilians would need a lawyer to get even that much.
Story conclusion:
Two years later, I was appointed the commander of the Human Resources Directorate. In honor of the nomination, Yediot Aharonot published several controversial sentences that I had said on various occasions. One of the quotations was the same false quote for which they had already apologized. This time I did not bother demanding a correction.
Surprise, surprise!
Again, a regular person could hardly arrange even this. (To understand Stern’s military rank at the time, see Wikipedia.)
As I said at the start, we all know what journalists are like, but we still should keep their crimes in mind.