Vladimir Putin accuses The New York Times, Bloomberg and NBC, of spreading fake news

Wednesday, 22 February 2017

The Russian foreign ministry today accused major Western media, including The New York Times, Bloomberg and NBC of spreading false news about the country. 

 

It has started compiling a list of offending articles on its website. As of Wednesday morning, the page included five news stories, one each from Bloomberg, The New York Times, NBC and the Santa Monica Observer, a free local weekly newspaper in California, and the Daily Telegraph in the U.K. 

Screengrabs of each story are displayed with a big red "FAKE" and "Contains false information" stamped on it. The page provides links to the original news stories and a short message stating that "information in this material does not correspond with reality."

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the project was aimed at countering an "information campaign aimed against Russia" by exposing false statements from leading foreign media outlets and officials. She said stories about Moscow's attempts to hack foreign elections and Russian submarines operating in northern Europe were examples of such fake news.