Recently, Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper fell victim to photo manipulation.
On a public Facebook group, a member shared an image supposedly showing the newspaper’s front page for 15 August 2019.
The headline read: “Top Kenyans to face US trial over Akasha drugs.” A photo showed Mombasa county governor Hassan Joho and Cherangani member of parliament Joshua Kutuny.
This same photo was shared on Twitter by prominent lawyer Miguna Miguna.
According to a report on the Daily Nation’s web site, also published 15 August 2019, the United States wanted to extradite “top Kenyans” for “drugs-related charges”, including judges, a former security official, and a well-known lawyer. But these individuals were not named.
The report only named “former Mombasa-based drug lords Baktash and Ibrahim Akasha”.
So were Joho and Kutuny on the Daily Nation’s front page the same day? We checked.
A post on Daily Nation’s official Facebook page shows the newspaper’s front page on 15 August 2019, without any photos of Joho and Kutuny. Neither were they in the physical paper, which Africa Check scanned.
Instead, the front page carried a photo of a man drinking water. The photo was promoting a story about a polluted river scheduled to run the next day.
The Daily Nation’s front page was faked before, in March 2019. The publisher debunked the fake headline by publishing it on Facebook with the original front page for comparison. – Grace Gichuhi
On a public Facebook group, a member shared an image supposedly showing the newspaper’s front page for 15 August 2019.
The headline read: “Top Kenyans to face US trial over Akasha drugs.” A photo showed Mombasa county governor Hassan Joho and Cherangani member of parliament Joshua Kutuny.
This same photo was shared on Twitter by prominent lawyer Miguna Miguna.
According to a report on the Daily Nation’s web site, also published 15 August 2019, the United States wanted to extradite “top Kenyans” for “drugs-related charges”, including judges, a former security official, and a well-known lawyer. But these individuals were not named.
The report only named “former Mombasa-based drug lords Baktash and Ibrahim Akasha”.
So were Joho and Kutuny on the Daily Nation’s front page the same day? We checked.
Photoshopped image
A post on Daily Nation’s official Facebook page shows the newspaper’s front page on 15 August 2019, without any photos of Joho and Kutuny. Neither were they in the physical paper, which Africa Check scanned.
Instead, the front page carried a photo of a man drinking water. The photo was promoting a story about a polluted river scheduled to run the next day.
The Daily Nation’s front page was faked before, in March 2019. The publisher debunked the fake headline by publishing it on Facebook with the original front page for comparison. – Grace Gichuhi
For publishers: what to do if your post is rated false
A fact-checker has rated your Facebook or Instagram post as “false”, “altered”, “partly false” or “missing context”. This could have serious consequences. What do you do?
Click on our guide for the steps you should follow.
Publishers guideAfrica Check teams up with Facebook
Africa Check is a partner in Meta's third-party fact-checking programme to help stop the spread of false information on social media.
The content we rate as “false” will be downgraded on Facebook and Instagram. This means fewer people will see it.
You can also help identify false information on Facebook. This guide explains how.
Further Reading
[email protected]: The challenges of working across Africa
Misinformation knows no borders and Africa Check often responds to similar false claims from country to country.
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