‘Additional detail’: N.Y. Times forced to backtrack on reporting after getting key element wrong

The New York Times walked back a report Tuesday after initially claiming a child in Gaza was sick from severe malnutrition, later clarifying post-publication that he had pre-existing health conditions.

The outlet released their original report on Thursday highlighting civilians in Gaza, emphasizing on minors, who have been affected by severe malnutrition during the ongoing Gaza-Israel conflict. In the piece, the NYT focused on a child by the name of Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, who is about 18 months old.

According to the article, al-Mutawaq’s mother told the outlet the 18-month-old “was born a healthy child,” later allegedly being diagnosed by the Friends of the Patient clinic and Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital with “severe malnutrition.”

However, in a statement released on X, a spokesperson for the NYT highlighted that while children in Gaza are malnourished and starving, the outlet had not learned about al-Mutawaq’s pre-existing conditions until after publication.

“Children in Gaza are malnourished and starving, as New York Times reporters and others have documented. 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 spokesperson wrote.

“We have since learned new information, including from the hospital that treated him and his medical records, and have updated our story to add context about his pre-existing health problems,” the NYT spokesperson added. “This additional detail gives readers a greater understanding of his situation. Our reporters and photographers continue to report from Gaza, bravely, sensitively, and at personal risk, so that readers can see firsthand the consequences of war.”

In their updated piece, the NYT removed al-Mutawaq’s mother claiming the child had been born “healthy,” and instead included that the child had “problems affecting his brain and his muscle development.” The outlet continued to state that al-Mutawaq’s condition had deteriorated rapidly in “recent months” due to difficulty finding food and medical care.

Concerns about famine in Gaza have increased since May, with the World Health Organization reporting that an Integrated Food Security Phase Classification warned an estimated 71,000 children under five are expected to be “acutely malnourished” over the next 11 months due to alleged aid blockades.

While Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health (GMH) told Reuters on July 22 that hospitals are allegedly “overwhelmed by the number of casualties from gunfire” and “can’t provide much more help for hunger-related symptoms because of food and medicine shortages,” outside verification from the GMH on the death toll from starvation has not been reported as of Tuesday.

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