David Collier analyzes one of the recent in-kind contributions of the international media to Hamas in “The image went viral: The truth did not.” In this case the contribution derives from photographic images of a deformed child allegedly starving in Gaza. Collier traces the photos to the Gaza-based photographer Ahmed Jihad Ibrahim Al-arini, who uploaded them to his Instagram account on July 22.
The New York Times hopped to it and made its contribution in the page-one story dated July 24. The Times story carries the byline of three reporters. One reported from Haifa, one from Jerusalem, and one from London. How exactly does that work?
Alex Berenson is a former New York Times reporter who won renown as a Covid skeptic, yet he fell for the Hamas/Times op. He repents in “URGENT: The New York Times fails catastrophically in Gaza.”
Repentance is good for the soul, but it is way too late in the day to fall for stuff like this. Even Berenson’s lede is lame: “The New York Times appears to have spread propaganda meant to raise fears of famine in Gaza.” The Times strikes again, or same as it ever was, would be more like it.
Collier reports that the deformed child has cerebral palsy. Collier observes: “The published images in all the various news broadcasts and publications have either been deliberately cropped to remove the image of the healthy brother, blurred him into obscurity, or the journalists have only chosen to use photos in which the brother is not visible at all.” Collier proceeds to take on the current Hamas propaganda campaign. Please check out his story here. It’s an impressive piece of work.
The Times attributes its image or video of the deformed child in the July 24 story to Saher Alghorra in Gaza. We should know by now how that works. The Times has compiled his recent and archived work for the Times here. Read about Alghorra here.
The Times story has now been revised and updated with this July 29 editor’s note: “This article has been updated to include information about Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, a child in Gaza suffering from severe malnutrition. After publication of the article, The Times learned from his doctor that Mohammed also had pre-existing health problems.” Query what happened — where was the brother in the Times photo? — and query whether Alghorra maintains the same relationship with the Times — as employee or contractor — that he did on July 24.
