Hours after the Star newspaper reported that the governor of a Kenyan county had set up a presidential campaign centre, an image started circulating on Facebook and WhatsApp. It appears to show a stone and concrete sign outside the campaign centre.
The large sign, of the kind you might find outside a corporate office, has pillars of stacked stones. A photo of Mwangi wa Iria, the governor of Murang’a county in central Kenya, is shown on a plaque in the centre. Next to the photo are the words: “Mwangi wa Iria, Presidential Campaign Centre, Redhill, Nairobi.”
Does the photo, shared on 12 July, really show a structure outside Iria’s new campaign offices? We checked.
The Star’s report used a different photo of what it claimed was the governor’s “presidential campaign secretariat” in Nairobi.
A reverse image search of the photo shared on social media reveals it is not recent, nor was it taken in Kenya.
Stock photography website Alamy describes the original photo as showing a “blank stone sign marker in garden”. It was taken on 29 May 2016 in California in the US.
The original image was digitally altered, with the text and photo of Mwangi wa Iria added. – Dancan Bwire
The large sign, of the kind you might find outside a corporate office, has pillars of stacked stones. A photo of Mwangi wa Iria, the governor of Murang’a county in central Kenya, is shown on a plaque in the centre. Next to the photo are the words: “Mwangi wa Iria, Presidential Campaign Centre, Redhill, Nairobi.”
Does the photo, shared on 12 July, really show a structure outside Iria’s new campaign offices? We checked.
Photo digitally manipulated, not of Iria’s offices
The Star’s report used a different photo of what it claimed was the governor’s “presidential campaign secretariat” in Nairobi.
A reverse image search of the photo shared on social media reveals it is not recent, nor was it taken in Kenya.
Stock photography website Alamy describes the original photo as showing a “blank stone sign marker in garden”. It was taken on 29 May 2016 in California in the US.
The original image was digitally altered, with the text and photo of Mwangi wa Iria added. – Dancan Bwire
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