The New York Times scrubs a story; Fauxtography at WaPo

On Saturday night, I reported on a New York Times story that indicated that the 'vast majority' of the casualties in Gaza on Saturday were Hamas police officers and security men.

For those of you who have watched the videos further down the page, I am sure that you noticed that all of the victims in the live shots were adult males. Now, even the New York Times is confirming that the 'vast majority' of those killed are Hamas police and security men (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).

...

The center of Gaza City instantly became a scene of chaotic horror, with rubble everywhere, sirens wailing, and women shrieking as dozens of mutilated bodies were laid out on the pavement and in the lobby of Shifa Hospital so that family members could identify them. The vast majority of those killed were Hamas police officers and security men, including two senior commanders, but the dead included several construction workers and at least two children in school uniforms.

Omri reports at Mere Rhetoric that during the night, the Times scrubbed the story.

Here's the thing though: if you click through to that story those paragraphs have disappeared. But you know that the article existed because even the hand-wringing anti-Israel morons at Feministe quoted it. This kind of post-hoc media sanitation is becoming something of a trend.

Trend? I'd say it's become the norm.

But the Times isn't the only paper trying to 'enhance' the 'Palestinian' story this morning. So is the Washington Post.

According to I*Consult, the Washington Post just published the following photo from Gaza — shot and captioned by an Arab photographer. (Hattip Barry Rubin)

The caption reads:

Palestinian children and a man wounded in Israeli missile strikes are seen in the emergency area at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2008. Israeli warplanes demolished dozens of Hamas security compounds across Gaza on Saturday in unprecedented waves of simultaneous air strikes. Gaza medics said at least 145 people were killed and more than 310 wounded in the single deadliest day in Gaza fighting in recent memory. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra) (Khalil Hamra - AP)

Are the three children on the other stretcher wounded? Or dressing? Actually, if you read the text carefully, it doesn’t say the children are wounded, but that they are photographed with a wounded man. My suspicion is that were there real blood on these children’s bodies the photographer would have included it in his photo.

Richard Landes, who was instrumental in exposing the al-Dura fraud, goes on to note that the picture is no longer at WaPo, but that it still appears online with the same caption elsewhere.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Cross-posted to Israel Matzav.