Get access to Brad Slager's "Riffed From the Headlines," a daily VIP feature where he looks to bring accountability to the mainstream media. Use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your VIP membership!
Stealth Story Evolution – THE NEW YORK TIMES
Along with facts, more of a correction is needed.
The Times has some more explaining to do after running a photograph on the front page of an emaciated toddler in Gaza. Said to be emblematic of the food and supplies crisis in the region, the image of this child became a contested one. People began to ask questions, for instance, how it was that this child was so malnourished while his mother and another youth in a photo were not appearing to be malnourished themselves?
The Times has since come out with an “Editor’s Note” that tries to explain that more information came in and that the boy has other preexisting conditions that have led to his physical state. This is a weak comment that needed a full correction or retraction, but you get the sense of their approach by the closing lines that try to indicate their journalists in Gaza are brave and diligent, so please keep from criticizing them. Thank you.
We have appended an Editors' Note to a story about Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, a child in Gaza who was diagnosed with severe malnutrition. After publication, The Times learned that he also had pre-existing health problems. Read more below. pic.twitter.com/KGxP3b3Q2B
— NYTimes Communications (@NYTimesPR) July 29, 2025
Stolen Validity – AXIOS
So you missed the controversy we see…
Despite the backtracking by the Times, Axios came out with its own version of starving infants in Gaza – Sort of. Just as the paper of record was recalibrating, Axios had a similar report on the conditions, and it used the imagery of the same Mother and child, just a different camera angle.
This is beginning to appear like these were photographs spoon-fed to our press by Hamas. That is suspected, given the fact that if the starving of the very youngest in Palestine was so widespread, they might be able to come up with more examples, rather than sharing images coming from the same family.
At least 16 children under five have died of starvation-related illnesses since July 17 and half a million people are currently experiencing "an extreme lack of food," according to a UN-affiliated report out Tuesday. pic.twitter.com/r9kWSCe2KB
— Axios (@axios) July 30, 2025
Body Checking the Fact-Checkers – WASHINGTON POST
The volume of damaged work was what was most impressive.
Earlier this week, we had to pause and wipe a tear as it was revealed that Glenn Kessler - a favorite of ours around RftH - would be leaving his post as the resident fact-checker at the Washington Post.
As a form of delivering a proper send-off, we offer you this lengthy, but far from comprehensive, list of Glenn’s fractured facts and foibles from over the years.
On His Final Day At the Washington Post, We Recognize the Career of 'Esteemed' Fact-Checker Glenn Kesslerhttps://t.co/LXnMYhKAHN
— RedState (@RedState) July 31, 2025
Low-Octane Gaslighting – CNN
Aggressively quoting you in hostile fashion, we presume.
There was a bit of an internal fracas at CNN when Scott Jennings brought up the predictions from months ago made by CNN financial correspondent Richard Quest. Jennings noted how Quest's predictions back in April that tariffs would severely impact the economy look very bad today in light of all the good trade deal announcements and the performance of the economy.
Quest was bothered that Jennings would do this, when he made comments based on much higher announced tariff levels, which Trump has altered significantly downward; therefore, it is not his fault.
Small detail, Richard: Tariffs are not a cemented standard, and they were always regarded as a negotiation tool, one that was fluid in nature. One would expect a financial journalist to understand that if they were applied with such ease, they could likewise be adjusted just as easily when trade talks took place.
tonight @ScottJenningsKY sank to disingenuously playing with facts when he threw my April recession comments at me. When I made them @realDonaldTrump had imposed 130% tariffs on China. Today’s 15-20% tariff rates are bad but manageable. Sad Scott Sad you sank to that
— Richard Quest (@richardquest) July 31, 2025
Legalized Press-titution – THE ATLANTIC
Do you like breasts on a woman? You may be a fascist!
The ongoing controversy swirling around Sydney Sweeney appearing in ads for American Eagle Outfitters continues to roil the media landscape – and continues to have the company tabulating its profits as a result.
Next to get into an excitable lather over a clothing model is The Atlantic’s Charlie Warzel, who sees this division in this country over these promotions as unsettling. And, of course, those of the right are the main problem:
The Right has co-opted her image. Even her figure has become a cultural stand-in for the idea, pushed by conservative commentators, that Americans should be free to love boobs. A marketing executive with enough awareness of Sweeney’s image and the political and cultural conversation around her might have figured that an ad featuring her talking about her good jeans would draw eyeballs.
So, to understand, is it a conservative/Republican platform that the country should be free to appreciate women’s figures? That sounds like a winning strategy, to be honest.
As the Democrats and the left try to figure out how they lost the male vote, here they are condemning those who find a voluptuous woman to be attractive.
The backlash to Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle ad campaign—and the backlash to the backlash—illustrates how broken online discourse is, Charlie Warzel writes. https://t.co/rn3UGy7fUI
— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) July 30, 2025
