It’s shoulder to the wheel time for BBC Verify’s more than 60 staff on another busy Monday: their first effort to ‘debunk’ disinformation today confirms a picture of a scantily-clad dancer at Donald Trump’s Halloween party is indeed real. The fact-checking ‘specialists’ over at Broadcasting House have, using their advanced verification techniques, “debunked” claims the photo was taken two years ago at Dua Lipa’s bash. Thanks for that…
“The Halloween bash was attended by the US president and several top administration officials, receiving extensive media coverage. We’ve managed to identify where in Mar-A-Lago the image was taken and verified a different video of the dancer at the party.
Local government minister Alison McGovern told LBC that the BBC should apologise to Trump:
“If they’ve made an editorial mistake, then they should apologise. And, more broadly, I think if they’ve made errors, I think the answer to that is better quality journalism, and to invest in that journalism so that we can have the standard of programmes we all want from the BBC.”
