NYT Appends Gazan Child Photo With Editors’ Note

The New York Times (NYT) has issued an Editors’ Note Wednesday regarding the photo of an extremely sick-looking young boy in his mother’s arms in Gaza which was featured in an article circulating the media over the past week.

The NYT has since altered the article, adding that the child also suffered from health issues, after the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) publicized records showing the child suffered from severe preexisting medical conditions and had been evacuated to a hospital in Italy to receive care in June.

“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,” the NYT posted to their ‘NYTimes Communications’ X account.

“We have since learned new information,” they wrote, adding that they “have updated our story to add context about his preexisting health problems.”

The note was posted to the outlet’s PR account on X which boasts significantly less followers (88.9K) than the article with the actual photo that was publicized through NYT’s news updates account (55.1M).

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Knesset member Naftali Bennet reacted to the post, accusing NYT of intentionally spreading the disinformation and criticizing their “quiet” public correction.

Bennet blamed the outlet’s alleged spread of disinformation for causing a “tsunami of hate,” saying they were aware of Hamas’s tactic of using babies with preexisting illnesses to propagate misleading realities. He accused them of “intentionally spreading the lie,” calling it “a blood libel.”