State news website Philippine News Agency (PNA) failed to check the source of a photo they recently used in a story called “Urban Warfare a challenge for soldiers in Marawi” that had spread on social media before they realized it was a story from the Vietnam war.
The story published was about the challenges Philippine military faced in restoring order in the besieged Marawi City, but the photo used was of soldiers during the Vietnam War on a “Vietcong” hunt.
PNA has since taken down the image from the story and removed it from its social media accounts. But they have not issued a statement for erroneously using the photo with the story.
(See screenshot of original story with the photo here)
Rappler pointed out that this was the state-funded information agency’s second mistake of the month, after reporting that Assistant Secretary of the Interior department Epimaco Densing III said that 95 countries were convinced there were no extrajudicial killings in the Philippines. Epimaco later clarified that he made no such statement.
