The press has zero scruples:
But while Drezner acknowledges that Israel faces “disproportionate criticism” for its conduct from the international community, he doesn’t mention that many of the alleged images of starving Gazan children have turned out to be nothing of the sort. An investigation for The Free Press by Olivia Reingold and Tanya Lukyanova of 12 photographs of allegedly starving children revealed that every single one of them “were already facing grave situations because of their health, irrespective of any third-party action.”
Reingold and Lukyanova point out that, after publishing a photo of an emaciated Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, The New York Times had to revise the story to acknowledge he “had pre-existing health problems affecting his brain and his muscle development” (other photos of the child showed his brother to appear healthy and well-fed). The paper also added a brief editor’s note to the piece. Children portrayed in other images published by the AP, CNN, and other outlets suffered from ailments ranging from cystic fibrosis to cerebral palsy to genetic wasting conditions.
But, as the saying has it, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”
Unfortunately, this is part of a pattern of behavior by the press. Even before the recent flurry of “starvation” photos from Gaza, The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) and the Rutgers University Social Perception Lab published a report in July cautioning that too many journalists have been uncritically citing the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry on conditions in Gaza. “The result is a narrative that masks its source and misleads the public about who is to blame.”
They're called lies.
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