The Telegraph is under fire for refusing to take down a damaging ‘fake news’ story

The Daily Telegraph logo with a magnifying glass. fake news
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The Telegraph is under fire for failing to take down and apologise for an incorrect and damaging story on its website, leading people to accuse it of ‘fake news’.

On 30 July, at 4:21pm, it published a story with the headline:

Just hours afterwards, a correction was issued by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority to say that the teenager was not involved in anti-fracking protests:

The Guardian, which had published a similar story, quickly amended its original article. At the time of writing on 31 July, the original story is still on the Telegraph‘s website.

Reaction

The refusal to take down the story has angered people and led them to accuse the Telegraph of ‘fake news’:

Many people directed tweets towards the Telegraph and the journalist to ask them to correct the story:

And as Spinwatch pointed out:

Take it down!

At the time of writing, the article has been live for 20 hours. There can be no excuses for it remaining. While the correction issued by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority raises a whole host of other issues, the Telegraph is knowingly perpetuating a false and damaging narrative that anti-fracking protesters ‘groomed’ a 14-year-old.

This cannot be acceptable. The paper urgently needs to correct its mistake and apologise.

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Featured image via Flickr/HonestReporting

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