A tweep shared the images above as being of the front pages of The Star and Daily Nation newspapers on August 13, 2020.
Today's headlines.pic.twitter.com/tw2h7oKJce
— Caleb Kibor (@CalebKibor) August 13, 2020
The claims were, almost immediately, flagged as fake news by those replying to the tweet.
Background
Manipulation of media content to score political points, which was especially witnessed during the 2017 general election, is a common trend in Kenya. This year has, however, seen more fake newspaper headlines flood social media sites, with false claims on the COVID-19 pandemic and political ones as well, that have been widely debunked.
Verification
Both images in the claim carry the image of genuine publications using fonts, colours and layouts identical to the genuine ones. However, Piga Firimbi searches found that the images were doctored.
The Star Kenya dismissed the headline in the claim as “Fake News” in a tweet, showing the real image of their front page whose main headline reads “Raila ODM purge ahead of 2022 polls”. The headlines and main image had been altered.
FAKE vs REAL, get an authentic copy of the Star by dialing *550*3# or here –>> https://t.co/V97HXE26zo pic.twitter.com/CpoYnBL8ly
— TheStarKenya (@TheStarKenya) August 13, 2020
The Daily Nation had tweeted, an hour earlier, the original front page of their paper on August 13 with the main headline reading “Secret card in revenue battle” and not “Uhuru to dissolve cabinet” as shown in the claim. Only the splash story (main headline) was altered from the original page, while the other stories appearing on the front page that day remained unchanged.
Secret card in revenue battle https://t.co/1vS3mx5Oox pic.twitter.com/i6Jq3pTqfi
— Nation Africa (@NationAfrica) August 13, 2020
Verdict
The images presented as the front pages of the Daily Nation and The Star newspapers on August 13 have been doctored, making the claim FALSE.
This story was produced by Piga Firimbi in partnership with Code for Africa’s iLAB data journalism programme, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie.
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