IANS fell for a satire on Pakistani PM Imran Khan, which claims he read chart of Covid Curve upside down.
Recently news agency IANS (Indo-Asian News Service) published a news report, which claimed that Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said that the coronavirus curve was flattening after he mistakenly read the curve upside down.
News Title “Imran Khan reads chart upside down, claims Covid curve flattening”
The archive link of this report can be accessed here http://archive.is/FXjhj
After that many other media houses also published the same story quoting IANS as their source. One such story was reported by the Outlook India also.
The archive link of this report can be accessed here http://archive.is/aIiMZ
A popular news website NEWSD also quoted the same story sourced by IANS on its own website.
The archive link of this report can be accessed here https://archive.is/3XzaP
#Pakistan Prime Minister #ImranKhan has made a gaffe claiming that the #COVID19 curve has been flattening in Pakistan. The faux pas happened because he was reading the chart upside down.https://t.co/5YVqVGc2AT
— DT Next (@dt_next) May 7, 2020
TRUTH
The source of IANS news was a satire website. It was for humor, not true.
Later, the reporter of this article on IANS who was identified as Aarti Tikoo Singh with the help of byline given in the article also clarified on twitter that she mistook satire for the serious news.
On searching the internet we found that this is not really news but a piece of satire which had been reported by a Pakistani satire news website THE DEPENDENT which itslef sounds a satire, opposite to ‘The Independent’.
As you can see on the left in Bold red letters “Satire” is written vertically.
Also under the article the website declared
Even at the end of the story, it is clearly mentioned as the above piece is a work of satire and does not present itself as the truth. The dependent also retweeted a post on Twitter from an official parody account of Pakistani satire website The Dependent which mentioned that IANS took this satire post too seriously and this post is all about just a satire and nothing else.
Learn to differentiate between satire and actual news reports @ians_india
And hands off our PM. He may be a petty, facile, undemocratically imposed lackey without principles, but he’s OUR petty, facile, undemocratically imposed lackey without principles! pic.twitter.com/mrTIeS4SBl
— Not The Dependent (@DependentNot) May 7, 2020
The original article can be read here https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/05/06/curve-finally-flattening-says-pm-realising-chart-upside/
Even the free press journal also carried out a post to clarify how IANS carried out this satire news as a genuine news story on its website. This story can be read here https://www.freepressjournal.in/world/ians-falls-for-satirical-news-piece-publishes-article-on-imran-khan-reading-covid-19-chart-upside-down
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