- Multiple outlets deleted entire stories Tuesday after reporting out a false number of children currently in migrant-related U.S. custody.
- The number is actually from 2015, when former President Barack Obama was in office.
- Some of the outlets issued corrections and updated the articles, while others such as Reuters and AFP deleted the article in its entirety and declined to post a new one.
Multiple outlets deleted entire stories Tuesday after falsely reporting the number of children in migrant-related U.S. custody.
Outlets including Reuters, Agence France-Presse (AFP), NPR and Aljazeera jumped on a report from the United Nations, writing Monday that the country has the world’s highest rate of detained children. The outlets reported that there are currently more than 100,000 children in immigration-related custody, which violates international law.
A day later, Reuters and AFP deleted their stories after the U.N. clarified the numbers were from 2015, when former President Barack Obama was in office. AFP did not immediately respond to a request for comment on why it no longer felt the numbers were newsworthy after being informed they were from 2015.
“Reuters decided to withdraw its story after the United Nations issued a statement on November 19 saying the number of children in detention was not current but was for the year 2015,” a Reuters spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The page where the article was featured has a retraction on Reuters. The outlet declined to comment on why the story was no longer deemed newsworthy.
“A Nov. 18 story headlined ‘U.S. has world’s highest rate of children in detention -U.N. study’ is withdrawn. The United Nations issued a statement on Nov. 19 saying the number was not current but was for the year 2015. No replacement story will be issued,” it reads.
AFP also retracted its entire story, tweeting Tuesday that the author of the report clarified the numbers.
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