The Foreign and Strategic Affairs Editor of a renowned Indian independent news agency Indo-Asian News Service (IANS), Aarti Tikoo Singh takes a satirical post from a Pakistani paper seriously and goes on to publish the satire as an actual news item for her news agency.
IANS published a news story on its website claiming that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan said Pakistan was able to flatten the COVID-19 curve after mistakenly reading the curve upside down. It had no link to reality.
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The original story as satire was shared by Pakistan’s satirical site The Dependent on May 6. It maintains that the news published was clearly mentioned as satire.
The Dependent has refuted the baseless story by IANS and asked the Indian news agency to “learn the difference between satire and actual news report”.
The IANS buffoonery had the Pakistani audience in fits. Pakistani journalist Zarrar Khuhro took to Twitter to mock IANS at the news blunder.
Some of the Indian users also joined Pakistan in taking on the IANS.
