AN IMAGE CIRCULATING on social media suggests that The Journal reported the death of a man from monkeypox in bizarre circumstances.
A headline placed beneath The Journal’s logo and written in the same font as news articles on this website reads: “Man whose parachute failed to open due to climate change dies of monkeypox.”
A subhead also reads: “‘He didn’t stand a chance,’ said paramedics. ‘His body was riddled with the pox and he was most certainly dead before impact.’”
However, this image has been manipulated: The Journal has never published any story with this headline or subhead.
The fake article has been shared widely on Facebook and Instagram, and appears to be an attempt to parody coverage of both climate change and monkeypox.
It uses the same masthead, site banner, colour scheme, icons, view counter and headline font as The Journal’s legitimate site and app, but does not contain a real article.
A Google search for a piece published by The Journal with that headline does not turn up any results.
The stock image of a skydiver used in the fake article comes from a piece that The Journal did publish in 2016 about 13 skydivers parachuting from a burning plane in Colorado after it caught fire.
But unlike genuine articles, the fake headline contains a full stop. It has been added in over the original headline in the same font to appear legitimate.
The subhead in the image on social media also uses a different font than The Journal uses in its articles.
Susan Daly, Managing Editor with Journal Media, confirmed the image in this social media post had been manipulated and said that The Journal had never published such an article.
It is the second such fake using The Journal’s logo to appear on social media in recent weeks, following the circulation of another image containing a purported article about monkeypox in July.
Other articles purporting to be from Irish media outlets with false claims have previously gone viral on social media, and the practice of manipulating legitimate news articles is becoming a new trend in the spread of misinformation online.
Social media users should therefore be wary of screenshotted articles which contain headlines only, particularly where the information within them seems suspect.
In such cases, it is advisable to see if the article appears on the news website in question before sharing the image with others.
The Journal’s FactCheck is a signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network’s Code of Principles. You can read it here. For information on how FactCheck works, what the verdicts mean, and how you can take part, check out our Reader’s Guide here. You can read about the team of editors and reporters who work on the factchecks here.
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