The misleading Gaza photo is not a one off

The Free Press reports:

For the past several weeks, critics have fumed at The New York Timesover a misleading photo of an 18-month-old boy in Gaza on its front page. It turns out that Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, who was a symbol for a story about widespread hunger in Gaza, wasn’t simply suffering from malnutrition. He had preexisting health issues “affecting his brain and his muscle development,” according to an updated version of the story. But that detail didn’t find its way into print.

I blogged on this previously. But it turns out this was not an isolated incident.

An investigation by The Free Press reveals that at least a dozen other viral images of starvation in Gaza also lacked important context: The subjects of those photos have significant health problems. Those appeared all over social media, in the reports of leading international aid organizations, and on some of the most prestigious news outlets in the United States, including CNN, NPR, and the Times—without disclosing the complicated medical histories that help explain their stark appearances. …

The children in all of the images reviewed by The Free Press were either sick or facing death at the time their images circulated online, according to local reports in Arabic. Their situations were dire. But in every instance, they were already facing grave situations because of their health, irrespective of any third-party action.

The article goes into details of all these cases.

This doesn’t mean there isn’t hunger or starvation in Gaza. There is. But the media reporting of these misleading photos are being used to mislead.