New York Times Runs a Phony Photo of Gaza Starvation

Image of boy with genetic condition added fuel to a region on fire

A picture is worth a thousand misleading words–especially if you are determined to demonize Israel.

Last week, the New York Times was forced to add an embarrassing Editors’ Note to its front-page story, which featured a photo of an emaciated Gaza boy supposedly “born healthy” before starvation beset the Gaza Strip due to alleged Israeli malfeasance.

It turns out the boy suffers from genetic pre-existing health conditions that could explain his skeletal state. But why is the Times only telling us this after the story was published?

Press play to hear a narrated version of this story, presented by AudioHopper.

It looks like the photo and the mother’s claim that he was “born healthy,” relayed unquestioningly, was one of those stories that was too good to check.  Especially because the photo of the boy was  distributed by the same Turkish state-run news agency that distributed a photo of the boy alongside his healthy-looking brother, according to the Israeli media watchdog group Honest Reporting.

How widespread could starvation really be if the brother looks so healthy?  And why was that photo with the boy’s brother not fit to print?

The photo of Mohammed Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq was first used by the Daily Express in London on July 23. The next day it was splashed around the world with stories on NBC, the Guardian and BBC.

The New York Times used video of the boy with his mother in a story posted July 24 for its article on Gaza and used the photo of the emaciated boy being cradled by his mother on its front page the following day.

The print edition story was titled, “Young, Old and Sick Starve to Death in Gaza.”

The caption said,  “Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, about 17 months, with his mother, Heday al-Murawaq, who said he was born healthy but recently diagnosed with severe malnutrition.”

The story said that, “according to doctors in the territory, an increasing number of their patients are suffering — and dying — from starvation.”

To buttress this claim, the story said, “The Gaza ministry of health has reported more than 40 hunger-related deaths this month, including 16 children, and 111 since the beginning of the war, 81 of them children. The data could not be independently verified.”

But why didn’t the New York Times note that the Gaza Ministry of Health is run by Hamas? That crucial detail, if included, would have made the numbers even more suspect.

Further down in the story,  readers are told that “Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, about 18 months old, lives with his mother and brother in a tent on a Gaza beach. Mohammed’s mother, Hedaya al-Mutawaq, 31, said the toddler’s father was killed last October when he went out to seek food.”

“I walk the streets looking for food,” she said by phone, her voice barely audible. The charity kitchens she relies on to help feed Mohammed and his brother, Joud, 3, cannot always help, and they go hungry. “As an adult, I can bear the hunger,” she said. “But my kids can’t.”

Mohammed, she said, was born a healthy child. “I look at him and I can’t help but cry,” she said.

So the reporters just took the mother’s word that Mohammed was born healthy. They were talking to other doctors in the Gaza strip but didn’t trouble themselves to talk to Mohammed’s doctors.

Why not?

It looks like they wanted to establish a narrative of  starvation in Gaza and did not want anything to interfere with that narrative.

That’s also how the photo of Mohammed was selected.

According to Semafor, at 3pm on July 24, Times editors working on the Gaza story  were planning to use a photo of Youssef Matar, “a young child in Gaza with cerebral palsy who was suffering from lack of nourishment.

But New York Times editors were concerned that the boy’s ailment would complicate the story line.

“Do we want to use a photo that will be the subject of debate when there is presumably no shortage of images of children who were not malnourished before the war and currently are?” managing editor Marc Lacey said about the photo in a Slack message obtained by Semafor.

So instead they used the photo of Mohammed with his mother, but not the one with his healthy-looking brother behind him.

Nevertheless, the story and the photo soon imploded.

On July 26, Honest Reporting, the Jerusalem-based media watchdog group, tweeted that, “We believe this child is suffering from a medical condition, though it hasn’t been confirmed. What we do know is this: the version published in the media cropped out his healthy older brother, who appears in other shots from the same photo shoot.”

The tweet included two photographs of the boy with his healthy-looking brother.

Then, on July 27, independent journalist David Collier reported that Mohammed was “born with serious genetic disorders.”

Collier said he had seen a medical report on the boy from the Basma Association for Relief in Gaza that stated that “Mohammed, has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy” and hypoxemia (low oxygen in the blood), possibly linked to a suspected genetic disorder inherited in an ‘autosomal recessive pattern.’”

Also, on July 27, CNN interviewed the boy’s mother who said,  “Mohammed suffers from a muscle disorder.”

As the controversy swirled,  the New York Times maintained a stony silence.

New York Times spokesman Charlie Stadtlander did not reply to an emailed inquiry from Media Globe asking why the Times did not use the photo of Mohammed with his healthy-looking brother.

When the Media Globe called the number listed for the foreign desk and asked to be connected to assistant managing editor Michael Slackman, who is responsible for all major stories, the person answering the phone said “everybody here is on deadline” and hung up.

On July 29, the New York Times essentially said they got the facts wrong on the boy but their story about starvation in Gaza is nonetheless correct.

The paper said on Twitter that, “Children in Gaza are malnourished and starving, as the New York Times and others have documented. We recently ran a story about Gaza’s most vulnerable civilians, including Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, who is about 18 months old and suffers from severe malnutrition.  We have since learned new information, including from the hospital that treated him and his medical records, and have updated our story to add context about his pre-existing health problems. This additional detail gives readers a greater understanding of the situation.”

But the statement, bereft of any contrition, does not really address the dereliction of duty by Times reporters. Namely, their failure to verify the mother’s claim that the boy was born healthy.

The mother’s quote about Muhammad being  born healthy was removed from the story.

It now says that “Mohammed, according to his doctor, had pre-existing health problems affecting his brain and his muscle development. But his health deteriorated rapidly in recent months as it became increasingly difficult to find food and medical care, and the medical clinic that treated him said he suffers from severe malnutrition.”

It also includes an editor’s note that says the story has been updated with new information, namely that, “After publication of the article, The Times learned from his doctor that Mohammed also had pre-existing health problems.”

So the poster child for starvation in Gaza turns out to be a boy who was actually sickly from birth.

Maybe the next time the Times writes about Gaza they should check their facts before publication, not afterwards.