A UKRAINIAN ATTACKS the POLICE WITH an AXE
The incident happened yesterday near the Poniatowski Bridge on the Aleje Jerozolimskie, next to the National Museum. The man driving the Honda, a citizen of Ukraine[1], didn’t pass the routine police check. He was caught a few moments later, when he suddenly got out of the car and attacked the police officers with an axe. As the “Reporter Miejski” states, the man was on drugs: methamphetamine and cocaine.
SOURCE: “News na dziś, Warszawa: Ukrainiec uzbrojony w siekierę zaatakował policjantów [+VIDEO]”, FakeNews.pl, March 2023, https://newsnadzis.pl/warszawa-ukrainiec-uzbrojony-w-siekiere-zaatakowal-policjantow-video/, Accessed 5.06.2023.
[1] Fake news: The nationality of the caught man was unknown. On the 5 may FakeNews.pl published that the man was Polish.
ANALYSIS:
The FakeNews.pl editorial staff reported that the first information about Ukrainian attacking the police officers with the axe was posted on the Facebook site “Miejski Reporter”. Several posts were published there suggesting that the man in the video was a citizen of Ukraine. The videos caught the public’s attention. As a result, the situation caused a wave of anti-Ukrainian comments, although the nationality of the man was unknown. Information was even published in the commercial media: the Eska Radio Site, Onet.pl, Gazeta Wyborcza and Super Express.
To verify the information, the Polish officer Robert Szumiat was asked. It turned out that the man caught by the Police was not a citizen of Ukraine, but a citizen of Poland.
about the SOURCE:
Newsnadzis.pl is a dubious website pretending to be a trustworthy source of the information. It’s spreading lots of fake news. The authors of the news are unknown. Newsnadziś.pl is known for several disinformation incidents. It’s impossible to find the members of the editorial staff that are responsible for the content of the website. The site is targeted at a broader audience than just Polish people, but the articles are translated automatically, which generates mistakes, e.g., random words from different foreign languages in the texts. This proves the lack of reliability during the verification and publication process. The wording used in the article is full of negative emotions, which refers to the polarization of the Polish society and hate speech targeted at Ukrainian refugees (for example: „Guests of PiS supporters of Ukraine“)
Most of the trustworthy media verify the information they publish. Nevertheless, there are still questionable sources that pursue disinformation, especially about the War in Ukraine. Described news is an example of media manipulation, and it shows how quickly disinformation spreads. This case also shows that false information can be published even in the trustworthy media such as Onet.pl.
