Fake News: Channel 10 Misleads Audiences on Gay Marriage Posters
Channel 10’s Eyewitness News has been caught out attempting to deceive its viewers in its coverage of the gay marriage debate. The TV network, which has recently been experiencing financial difficulties, has been exposed for airing a misleading story last week, in relation to an anti-gay marriage poster which was supposedly discovered in Melbourne’s Heffernan Lane. The poster, which is featured below, was reported to have been stumbled across by a Melbourne man, who later tweeted an image of the poster that went viral.
However, it has since emerged that the man in question did not in fact view any actual posters himself, but instead had the image sent to him by an unnamed friend. Channel 10, which had sent reporters to Heffernan Lane in order to locate the poster, decided that they would not let the truth get in the way of a good story. After discovering that the poster didn’t exist, the journalists covering the story decided to instead Photoshop the image onto a bus stop, as shown below, implying that the image had been paid for by an anti-gay marriage group to be displayed on public property.
In doing so, the story provided a misleading portrayal of events, as was confessed to later on when a spokesperson for the network outlined their mistake in a statement. “The poster in question had been taken down when our film crew visited the laneway in question so we were forced to source a copy online…Unfortunately, an oversight in briefing our graphics department interstate may have created a false impression about its size and location.”
Since the story emerged, no evidence has been provided that any posters containing the image were ever actually displayed anywhere in Melbourne, with even the Melbourne City Council denying the existence of such a campaign. It has now been revealed that the image originated online, with a US based Twitter user claiming credit for it. The scandal looks set to damage the credibility of the failing television network even further, as its ratings continue to struggle. Australians beware, Channel 10 is fake news.
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