ABC News ends horror month with humiliating correction over claims 14,000 babies in Gaza would starve to death in 48 hours

Sky News AU

29-05-2025

ABC News has issued an embarrassing correction after it repeated an 'absurd' claim that thousands of babies were at risk of dying of starvation in Gaza over a 48 hour period.
The national newsroom headed by News Director Justin Stevens admitted it had reported an 'incorrect' claim made by a UN spokesperson in its 11th correction published this month.
The UN's Tom Fletcher had claimed during an interview with the BBC last week that '14,000 babies would be at risk of dying in Gaza within a 48-hour period due to starvation', the claim was then picked up by multiple international media outlets and was repeated by ABC News Breakfast, ABC News Mornings and Afternoon Briefing.
Just hours after the BBC published the claims online, it had added a clarification, quoting a UN figure who admitted the initial claim had overstated findings from an IPC report that was projecting there could be 14,100 cases of severe acute malnutrition in Gaza over the next year.
Not only does the IPC report's projection cover an entire year – from April 2025 to March 2026 – rather than 48 hours, it also refers to severe acute malnutrition among children aged between six months and five years.
In its own correction, published on Wednesday, May 28 – a full week after the BBC had added its own correction - the ABC admitted its reporting was wrong.
'The remarks were based on an IPC report that warned 14,100 severe cases of acute malnutrition were expected to occur between April 2025 and March 2026 among children aged between six months and five years,' the ABC's correction states.
'The relevant content has been removed from all on-demand platforms.'
The correction, which fell short of an apology, was only made after Sky News Australia's Chris Kenny fact checked the programming, pointing out the errors.
'The 14,000 babies lie did not stand up to a moment's reflection let alone two minutes of fact-checking, yet journalists eagerly ran with it because it suited their anti-Israel narrative,' Kenny said about the correction on Thursday.
'Yet again lies were peddled about Israel and the corrections were too late and too little to repair the damage.'
SkyNews.com.au has contacted the ABC for comment.
The correction of the Gaza comment comes just days after the ABC apologised for "hurtful" remarks made on its Insiders program about Nationals MPs Alison Penfold and Pat Conaghan.
The ABC federal politics reporter Claudia Long had falsely claimed the two Nationals MPs had abandoned their electorates while they grappled with devastating floods in order to focus on the short-lived split between the Liberal and National parties.
"The ABC wishes to clarify that both Penfold and Conaghan spent the week in their electorates and sincerely apologises for the error. The comment has been removed from the on-demand version of the program," the ABC said in it's correction.
Ms Penfold told Sky News Australia she had been in Wingham, west of Taree, that morning talking to businesses and flood-affected residents and the ABC journalist had "not even bothered to call me before making these sorts of comments".
'This journalist, I've never met her, in fact, I'd never heard of her until yesterday," Ms Penfold said.
' I've been hard at work and as has Pat in the electorate. We live here, we know people affected.'
The ABC's nine other corrections issued in May include topics ranging from significantly overstating the number of women killed by their partner each year to a woman leaving a Gold Coast conference being incorrectly referred to as former US vice president Kamala Harris.
The Australian Jewish Association CEO Robert Gregory hit out at the ABC, telling SkyNews.com.au the Gaza starvation claim was 'absurd' and should never have been published.
'The claim that 14,000 babies could starve to death within 48 hours was so absurd that no thinking person should have believed it, yet the ABC published it,' Mr Gregory said.
"Unfortunately, such egregious errors happen far too often at the ABC, and they consistently fall in one direction."
He said the claim was 'inflammatory' and the damage had 'already been done'.
"This particular claim was not just false; it was inflammatory,' he said.
"It echoed the kind of ancient slanders that have historically endangered Jewish communities.
"While I welcome the ABC's belated acknowledgment of the mistake, the damage has already been done."