Bangladesh news media duped by satire, mistake it for real news

An explosive headline about police arresting the artist of the well-known graffiti series daubed on Dhaka walls, ‘Subodh’, rippled through the Bangladesh social media on the weekend afternoon, but it turned out that some news outlets have been fooled by a supposedly satirical article.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 3 Nov 2017, 04:44 PM
Updated : 3 Nov 2017, 05:15 PM

The Daily Star posted the piece of satire on its website and also ran it in its Star Weekend magazine, with the small-font tagline 'Satire' written above the headline.

But that did not stop the story from ricocheting across the internet and duping unsuspecting readers after some media outlets suffered one of the most embarrassing fails.

The writing centred on Section 57 of the ICT Act. The writer took the topic 'Subodh' to lampoon the provision of the law that has been criticised by the media and rights activists as a tool to suppress the freedom of expression.   

But bdnews24.com came to understand on Friday afternoon that some of the journalists did not get the joke.

Bangla daily Jugantor’s lead news headline screamed, "Three, including 'Subodh' graffiti artist, arrested" on its website.

Largest-selling broadsheet Bangladesh Pratidin's headline read - "Much discussed graffiti series' 'Subodh' arrested". 

Some other known and little-known media outlets also republished it as a news article.

The text of these articles under 'Staff Correspondent' or 'Online Desk' byline somehow were exactly or almost the same as that of Jugantor. Those carried photos of the graffiti.

bdnews24.com contacted Jugantor to know the source of the 'news'. The newspaper took down the article after a while without explanation.

Bangladesh Pratidin and others also removed their "Subodh artist arrested" stories later on.

But many Facebook users had already started reacting by the time. They criticised the police "for arresting the artist and the Act under which he was arrested".

A police officer with the rank of a deputy commissioner told bdnews24.com that he had received a number of calls over the issue.

The story went viral when The Daily Star promoted it to the top of its homepage. It did not put the 'Satire' tag on the story on its homepage at the time.

Asked why they made it a lead story in their online edition, a senior journalist at the newspaper told bdnews24.com, "Maybe it was a mistake." 

The article was shared 263 times until 2pm, but after it was dragged to the homepage, the number crossed 3,500 within hours.

Some took a dig at The Daily Star over the writing style.

"If you don't understand/know the difference between satire and fake news, you shouldn't be doing either," journalist-columnist Afsan Chowdhury wrote on Facebook. 

The Daily Star later inserted the word 'Satire' into a shoulder placed on top of the main headline and for a second time, in a bracket alongside the headline on its website.