The News (Jang Group) today published a story about UK media mogul Rupert Murdoch who has been accused of being part of a cover up in a massive phone hacking scandal. The story is accompanied by a photo of Murdoch, and when we saw it this morning, we could not help but laugh.
Here is the real photo of Rupert Murdoch for comparison.
Has no one at The News actually seen a photo of Rupert Murdoch before? More importantly, doesn’t anyone at The News know what a human being looks like? The bizarre proportions on the figure in the photo published should have at least made someone check the authenticity of the photo before it went to publication. And a simple ‘Google Images’ search would have easily revealed that it was not a real photo of the subject.
As funny as this mistake is, it raises troubling questions about fact checking and credibility at The News. If such an obvious fake can make it all the way to print, what else in The News has not been fact-checked or verified?
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PDFTags: credibility, fake photo, Jang Group, Rupert Murdoch, The News
How about International Probe by CPJ against the Jang Group Jang Group & Ansar Abbasi “ILLEGALLY” Taped the Telephones of Judges & Citizens. http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2011/04/jang-group-ansar-abbasi-illegally-taped.html
Ansar Abbasi & Jang Group Illegally Tape the Phones of Citizens & Judges – P – 1 (9 Apr 2009) http://youtu.be/95rtWVvqahw
Ansar Abbasi & Jang Group Illegally Tape the Phones of Citizens & Judges – 2 (9 Apr 2009) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpozOy8pNNg
I guess it happens when you are working in the newspaper industry. Recently, a leading Indian newspaper used Brazilian footballer Ronaldo’s picture in place of Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo who plays for Real Madrid. It was a horrible mistake but at least, they have used the fake picture of the same person instead of someone else’s.