NYT Editors Knew That Photo Was Deceptive

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The New York Times ran a photo on its front page that was a visual lie. 

The point of that lie was to back the claims made in their article that Israel was intentionally starving Gazan children, but apparently, there were no photos available that would back the claims made in their story. 

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No doubt they believed the story that their reporters were feeding them, not that any reporter who was not a Hamas toady would dare set foot in Gaza--but in the circular logic of the Times they assumed that nothing printed in their paper could be false. 

We know that they knew the photo was false because there are internal Times emails that show they did. In fact, the editors had rejected a different photo because they knew that printing a photo of a child suffering from a genetic disease did not back their story, and demanded it be replaced. 

The replacement, though, was of a child with a genetic disease as well. 

As is now known, a wide array of media outlets used a picture of a boy suffering from cerebral palsy as an example of a child “born healthy” and being starved by Israel. Many of those defending the use of the photo did so based on the premise that even if the media knew it painted a false picture, publishing the image was still a defensible act because the child is suffering from even more than malnutrition, therefore the malnutrition part makes the photo true enough.

But it doesn’t, of course. And it turns out that New York Times editors tried desperately to avoid using a photo of a child with preexisting conditions precisely because they understood it to be unethical. Semafor relates some of the behind-the-scenes discussions at the Times:

“Last Thursday at 3 pm, the Times was preparing to run images of Youssef Matar, a young child in Gaza with cerebral palsy who was suffering from lack of nourishment, alongside its July 24 story that cited doctors in Gaza finding ‘an increasing number of their patients are suffering and dying — from starvation.’

“But the Times’ topmost editors wanted to err on the side of caution. After viewing the gutting photo, according to communications viewed by Semafor, they worried that it might inadvertently call into question the paper’s reporting, which said that many of the children suffering from hunger did not have preexisting health issues.”

According to Semafor, the Times‘ managing editor Marc Lacey asked why they would use a misleading picture “when there is presumably no shortage of images of children who were not malnourished before the war and currently are?” Executive editor Joe Kahn, per internal communications seen by Semafor, put it simply: “The story isn’t framed around people with special needs and the lead art really should not do that, either.”

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Uh, maybe they would use a photo like that because there IS a dearth of photos of otherwise healthy children dying of starvation. Did they consider that?

Of course not. 

We already know that The New York Times employs a reporter who openly expresses his admiration for Hitler and defends him against accusations of bias. Nazis can be fair, too, you know. His work is published in the Times, so it must be true. 

So the idea that it would be fine to use the picture knowing the boy had cerebral palsy has been obliterated: The Times had already changed its prospective front page to avoid that very mistake.

But there’s more to learn from the Times’ internal communications. Notice that the editors tell the staff that the story is specifically supposed to make the point that children in Gaza without preexisting conditions are suffering from malnutrition. If the reports of such widespread hunger are true, they explained, there should be plenty of photos that show exactly that. And therefore the Times must reject its first proposed front-page photo, which did not meet those criteria.

And yet, the photo they replaced it with also did not meet that criteria. It must be very easy to find proof that Israel is deliberately starving otherwise healthy children, they said—our reporting makes that claim! And then they proceeded to fail to find a usable example of such a case. They hadn’t realized, they say, that this child also had cerebral palsy, just like the first child they considered using.

You can see it slowly dawning on them that there’s something else entirely going on here, that the trend is not what they believe it to be. You can even sense the frustration creeping into their communication: You reporters, they explain, are saying one thing and then showing us another—and then after we corrected you on it, you did it again!

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It is an article of faith among the smart set that Israel is, forever and always, in the wrong. You can see that reality in the condemnations of Israel by the United Nations, where Israel is condemned more than 2 1/2 times as often as every other country in the world combined. 

From 2015 through 2023, the UN General Assembly has adopted 154 resolutions against Israel and 71 against other countries. For texts and voting sheets, see the UN Watch Database, which will be updated to include the 2024 UNGA resolutions after they are published by the UN in January 2025.

The UN Watch Database also documents that from 2006 through 2024, the UN Human Rights Council has adopted 108 resolutions against Israel, 45 against Syria, 15 against Iran, 10 against Russia, and 4 against Venezuela.

The 2024 UNGA Resolutions: 18 on Israel vs. 7 on Rest of World

In 2024, the UNGA is expected to adopt 18 resolutions on Israel and only seven resolutions on the entire rest of the world, which include one resolution each on North Korea, Iran, Syria, Myanmar, Russia for its violations in Georgia, Russia for its occupation of Crimea, and the United States for its embargo on Cuba, as detailed in the charts below.

I don't know about you, but I find it a bit implausible that Israel is the worst human rights abuser in the world--in fact, 2 1/2 times worse than every other country in the world combined. 

Let's visit Afghanistan and find out. I hear Libya is not a garden spot either, with its slave markets that Hillary Clinton gifted them. 

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No doubt, conditions in Gaza are dire for many, but it is striking that Hamas can post a video of a starving hostage digging his own grave, and it is treated as a non-story. 

The entire Arab League has called on Hamas to release the hostages and disarm. The UK, Canada, and France on the other hand are promising to recognize Palestine as a state. 

This moral inversion is appalling, but entirely on brand for the postmodern West. 

  • Editor's Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie about President Trump, his administration, and conservatives.

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