A bitter fight has broken out on the American left over Van Jones, who is accused of spreading Israeli talking points while children in Gaza starve — bad news for his standing with progressives and for the credibility of cable news coverage of the war.

• Jones claimed a widely shared photo of a starving Gaza child was misleading because the boy had a genetic illness.
• The boy was real, was diagnosed with severe malnutrition, and his pre-existing condition made the hunger deadlier.
• Aid monitors report hundreds of deaths from hunger in Gaza, including many children, with most of the population in crisis-level food shortages.
• Jones and his co-speaker framed the images as an enemy disinformation campaign and urged people to distrust what they see online.
• Critics say no cable anchor will call the war a genocide, even as most independent genocide scholars do, and are openly accusing Jones of being bought or blackmailed.

Outlook: Expect the pressure on mainstream anchors to keep building as hunger deaths in Gaza rise and the gap between TV coverage and social media footage widens.