A Chinese Citizen Cannot Travel Back to His Country Due to His Damaged Passport
During a family trip to South Korea, a 4-year-old child doodled on his father’s passport, which caused his father to be prohibited from boarding a plane with the rest of his family. The border officials of South Korea did not find the father in-question, named Chen, eligible to cross the border due to drawings on the passport. According to Shanghaiist, the father shared the pictures of his passport, full of his son’s hilarious doodles, on a social networking site named Weibo in the hope of receiving help or recommendations regarding how to travel back to China. However, he unfortunately he was stranded in South Korea due to the doodles.
SOURCE: Williams, Amanda. “Chinese Man Stuck in South Korea after Son Doodles over His Passport Picture.” Daily Mail Online, Associated Newspapers, 2 June 2014, www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2645963/Chinese-man-gets-stuck-South-Korea-son-4-doodles-passport-picture.html.
ANALYSIS:
The news offers a very striking headline, which grabs people’s attention immediately due to the unusual circumstances of the case. After engaging people through an immediate click, the news’ page on the website welcomes people with a passport picture of the father in-question. However, the way pictures are drawn is quite suspicious while bearing in mind that the drawings belong to a 4-year-old child who is supposed to be less skilled in drawing pictures due to underdeveloped motor skills than the picture shows. Other than that, digital manipulation can be detected in the passport picture due to the lack of perspective and the single thickness of lines in the drawing even though the passport in the picture was folded slightly. Even some lines can be seen exceeding the edges of the passport in the picture. In addition to the poorly edited photo, the content of the article and the picture do not align with each other in terms of presenting the name of the father. In the news, the name of the father was presented as Chen while Weiming was written in the passport.[1]
Also, considering the fact that reliable news sources contain many facts, such as data, statistics, quotes from experts. or statements from authorities, there was no other source or information in regards to explaning the obstacle which supposedly did not allow the father to get on his plane.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the South Korean immigration service denied the news, and stated that many people from China suffered from not being eligible to travel due to an invalid passport.[2]
- [1] Başeçek, Can. “Pasaportu Oğlu Tarafından Çizilen Çinli Babanın Güney Kore’De Mahsur Kaldığı Iddiası.” Teyit, 31 Oct. 2022, teyit.org/analiz/pasaportu-oglu-tarafindan-cizilen-cinli-babanin-guney-korede-mahsur-kaldigi-iddiasi.
- [2] Kwaak, Jeyup S. “That Great Passport Doodle Story? Yep, a Fake.” The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company, 5 June 2014, www.wsj.com/articles/BL-KRTB-5926.
about the source:
Launched by DMG Media, based in the U.K., MailOnline is considered the most widely-read British newspaper website in the world due to attracting 191m+ visits on a monthly basis. Concerning its content, MailOnline covers a wide range of topics, including international news, politics, business, sports, health, and technology.[3]
Founded in 2016, Teyit is a fact-checking non-governmental organization that mainly targets improving the information ecosystem by boosting critical thinking and helping agents in the information ecosystem gain media literacy. Teyit is also a signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network’s Code of Principles.[4]
- [3] “About Mailonline.” Daily Mail Online, 23 Feb. 2022, www.dailymail.co.uk/home/article-10538781/About-MailOnline.html.
- [4] “Who Are We?” Teyit, en.teyit.org/who-are-we.
