Fake Terrorist

In late 2014, Australian news outlets faced a huge scandal which could have easily been avoided. Abu Bakar Alam, who was at the time 19, had his picture printed on the front of Fairfax newspapers because he was incorrectly identified as a true terrorist, Numan Haider, who stabbed two police officers before he was shot. His picture was posted all over major Australian newspapers and on the internet. The Age - an Australian newspaper - found the photo of him on Facebook, even though Alam did not have a Facebook account. The Age did apologize and made an out-of-court settlement with Alam.

This mishap could have easily been avoided if the news outlets had fact-checked and found the original source of the picture used. If they had put more effort into finding the original picture, they might have known it wasn't the terrorist.

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