Looks like we’re on a roll, readers! First, The BFD got Zucked for a week: now we’ve been officially Fact-Checked! By none other than Agence France-Presse! The world’s oldest news agency.
Ooh, I feel all funny inside. It’s like getting a shout-out from your favourite pop star.
Because, as you might be aware, I take a very dim view of “fact-checkers”. Lushy’s Third Law of How Not to be Fooled by the Media is: Always assume that “fact-checkers” are trying to bullshit you.
AFP have proved my rule, yet again.
But first, let’s have a look at what they had to say.
An image appearing to show New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern hugging a man wearing the colours of infamous Kiwi gang the Mongrel Mob has been shared hundreds of times on Facebook. However, the image has been doctored; the picture of Ardern has been lifted from a genuine photo showing her hugging first responders after the White Island Volcano disaster in 2019, while the picture of gang members was taken at a police officer’s funeral.
Well, yes.
The image was intended to compare Ardern’s propensity for mugging for attention by ostentatiously hugging anyone, any time there’s a camera present, and her government’s determination to cuddle up to “infamous” gangs.
And here’s the thing: in line with BFD policy, the original image is clearly watermarked, and captioned as a “Photoshop”. The background of the image has also been obviously altered with an “artistic” filter. This is in line with journalism ethics guidelines:
When photojournalists use tools such as Adobe Photoshop to dramatically alter images, such images should be clearly false to the reader and clearly labeled, taking care never to mislead or to deceive the reader or viewer.
The image is intended to be clearly understood as satire, in the same way as an editorial cartoon.
The image circulated after a bill aimed at restricting gun ownership for gang members was introduced by a Nations MP, but was not supported by Ardern’s Labour Party during a vote in the New Zealand House of Representatives, Newshub reported here.
AFP Fact Check
So, what’s happened here is that Facebook users have downloaded the image, cropped out the watermark and background and tried to pass it off as real. Whether because it was upscaled from a smaller image or deliberately done, the image has also been slightly blurred, which disguises the filtering.
But AFP should have – indeed, must have – known where the image came from.
The first stop for anyone – reader or journalist – trying to ascertain whether an image is false or not should be a reverse-image search. The best-known and easiest to use is Google Images.
I highly recommend that all consumers of media adopt reverse-image searches when confronted with seemingly incredible photographs.
Dropping the image of Ardern hugging the gang member immediately brings up results – which should have tipped off the AFP journalists.
The AFP’s “fact check” is currently the top result, but immediately below that (and which would have been the top results, prior) are the two BFD articles where the image originated. Had the AFP journalists simply clicked on either of those, they would have seen both the watermark and the disclaimer caption.
In fact, they didn’t even have to open the link to see the disclaimer.
By failing to disclose that the image was a deliberate satire, AFP have deceived readers by omission. Yes, the image is a faked composite – and it was never intended to be anything else.
The BFD has set out to satirise the powerful and amuse its readers with an obviously faked image, clearly identified as such. Social media users have usurped that image to apparently push a false narrative.
But the AFP “fact-checkers” have misled their readers.
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