A fake photo that purports to show a Washington Post story on Times Now being rated the most biased media house by a global rating agency has resurfaced on social media.
The Photoshopped picture, which flew around social media in 2016, was recently shared by Pakistan Defence (@defencepk) -a verified account on micro-blogging site Twitter.
While Times Now was flagged by UK's broadcast regulator Ofcom (Office of Communications) as recently as April this year for its biased coverage on Pakistan and Kashmir, this particular photo about a story by the Washington Post slamming Arnab Goswami led-Times Now, is fake.
We did not find any such story by the Washington Post. BOOM emailed the newspaper about the picture and is awaiting a response.
The Photoshopped picture also states that PolitiFact rated 73 percent of Times Now's news reports as 'Mostly False' and only 7 percent as 'True'. U.S.-based PolitiFact rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others on its 'Truth-O-Meter'.
PolitiFact rubbished that claim in an emailed response to BOOM.
"There is no truth to the assertion that PolitiFact has rated the accuracy of Times Now articles, period. We've never vetted a single Times Now article, nor is the news organization listed in our database. This image seems to have appeared in 2016 and it was thoroughly debunked at that time," Jon Greenberg, Staff writer at PolitiFact said.
Two Indian websites, News Crunch and India Samvad had called out the photo as fake, in 2016.
In April 2017, UK's broadcast regulator Ofcom heavily criticized Times Now and its former Editor-In-Chief Arnab Goswami over the content of 'The Newshour', a debate show anchored by Goswami.
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"In our view, throughout the 19 programmes in this case, Mr Goswami adopted a markedly different approach when interacting with panellists who were critical of the policies and actions of the Pakistani Government, compared with panellists who supported the policies and actions of the Pakistani Government." - Ofcom
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Read Ofcom's full statement here.
Fearing a ban in the UK, parent company Times Global told the regulator that Goswami had left the organisation and that it would impart training to sensitise its staff on providing unbiased news.
Goswami parted ways with Times Now in late 2016 and has recently launched a new television news channel Republic TV.
