When ‘how’ becomes ‘now’.
Times Now is a national English news channel. A parody account with name “Times How” which is a similar name as the original one uses the same logo with N replaced by H. The twitter handle has an extra i and H in place of N – TiimesHow
It’s bio says “News Delivered Straight From Source. No Manipulation. Satire. Parody”
You can see the difference between the logos –
Now it’s easy to fall for the small difference between the logo, but how can one miss the verified blue badge’s absence and the content of the tweet which is obvious satire. Many stand up comedians perform mimicry of actors etc and sounds very genuine but alas, they differ in face.
So Today Janta Ka Reporter, an online media fell for it which they realized and removed later with an apology.
Janta Ka Reporter ran a story ”
AAP will not be part of anti-BJP alliance for 2019 Lok Sabh polls, says Arvind Kejriwal”
in which they wrote –
“A news flash by Times Now quoted Kejriwal as saying, “AAP will contest 2019 election alone. After results, we will give outside support to Mahagathbandhan. Our party was formed to fight corruption, if we merge with crooks before elections, nobody will vote us, so after winning seats, we will join them.”
The above content they took from the parody handle Times How by mistake –
Satire –
Just In : AAP will contest 2019 election alone. After results, we will give outside support to Mahagathbandhan. Our party was formed to fight corruption, if we merge with crooks before elections, nobody will vote us, so after winning seats, we will join them.
– Arvind Kejriwal pic.twitter.com/Mxu1tyErWb
— TIMES HOW (@TiimesHow) August 9, 2018
You can read the article before editing/correction here
@TiimesHow really? 😂😂👌👌 pic.twitter.com/UyzbZVcsG5
— সৌরভ 🇮🇳 (@sourav4tweet) August 10, 2018
When journalism becomes a copy/paste job with no verification. 😂😂😂
— #RespectWomen (@tweeting_giant) August 10, 2018
Dedicated article based on parody account… #jantakareporter rocks… Ha ha…
— SELVAKUMAR (@5833620) August 10, 2018
After many people on twitter corrected them, they edited the article with removing the Parody handle’s tweet with apology –
“(The earlier version of our story carried a tweet from a parody account. We’ve removed the tweet and apologise for the error)”
This is not the first time a media house fell for this, earlier One of the leading Hindi channel ‘AajTak’ also fell for it which was debunked by AltNews
Gold standard of credible journalism? Aaj Tak falls for a parody account
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