A lie can circle the globe while the truth is still putting on its shoes. Nowhere is that more obvious than in the digital echo chamber where war stories gain traction within minutes and stick in the public mind for months. This week The New York Times gave the world a painful lesson in how an explosive narrative can travel far and wide while a quiet correction barely leaves the room.
Earlier this month the Times published a Gaza feature dominated by a heartbreaking photograph of an emaciated toddler, eighteen-month-old Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, cradled in his mother’s arms. The caption stated that the child had been born healthy but was now suffering from severe malnutrition. Shared through the paper’s main X account, the story reached roughly fifty-five million followers, instantly becoming a symbol of Gaza’s suffering. World leaders cited the image, commentators recirculated it and the implication was clear. Israel’s prosecution of the war, they argued, was starving children.
Only later did physicians clarify that Mohammed had been born with profound neurological and muscular disorders that left him unable to swallow food properly. His condition was tragic, but it was not simply the result of wartime shortages. That missing context should have been included from the start. The Times eventually added an editor’s note acknowledging the pre-existing illnesses and confirming that this information had been obtained only after publication.
Mistakes are inevitable, but clarification should follow the same urgency, visibility
Here is where credibility erodes. The correction appeared solely on @NYTimesPR, a lightly followed public-relations feed with fewer than ninety thousand followers, not on the main @nytimes account that launched the original story to tens of millions. In plain arithmetic the updated note reached about one sixth of one percent of the audience that absorbed the first version. The paper of record did correct the record, but it whispered where it once shouted.
As someone who has spent more than two decades in newsrooms and who now serves as Editor in Chief of The Jerusalem Post, I am well aware that mistakes are inevitable. Reporters chase deadlines, facts evolve, sources contradict one another. When errors arise, professional integrity demands a transparent and proportionate response. If a headline ran on page one, the correction belongs on page one. If a story was blasted to every social-media follower, the clarification should follow precisely the same route, with at least the same urgency and visibility.
The Times knows this principle. In its own handbook the paper states that “we must be forthright and timely in acknowledging our errors.” Timely the paper was; forthright it was not. Hiding the fix on a niche corporate account suggests an internal calculation that public contrition can be performed in half-measures without harming brand prestige. Readers are expected to accept that a buried note absolves the original sin, yet most will never encounter the update and therefore will never adjust their understanding of the story.
Why does this matter? Because modern conflicts are fought as fiercely on the battlefield of public opinion as on any physical front. Images and captions shape policy debates, affect humanitarian fund-raising, and influence diplomatic negotiations. One photo of an apparently starving child can become a moral cudgel yielding headlines, sound-bites and even votes in international forums. When that image is later revealed to be only half the story, the damage is already entrenched.
Critics of Western media often accuse legacy outlets of carrying innate biases against Israel. I prefer to judge case by case, yet the Times handed its detractors a gift. By omitting critical medical context in the first place and then opting for a low-profile correction, the newspaper reinforced suspicions that it privileges narratives of Israeli culpability and is reluctant to broadcast any fact that complicates that frame. At minimum it signalled that accuracy can take second place to virality.
The lesson is stark. In the age of instant amplification any news organization that wishes to retain public trust must match the scale of its corrections to the scale of its initial reach. That means posting revisions on every platform where the original appeared, pinning them prominently, and explaining in clear language how the mistake occurred. Anything less looks like damage control instead of accountability.
The New York Times insists that truth matters. I agree. Truth, however, does not merely require acknowledgement; it demands amplification equal to the falsehood it replaces. Until the paper is willing to raise its voice for corrections as loudly as it does for dramatic headlines, its credibility will remain under justified scrutiny.