Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
Claim
CNN Reported about Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s investment in Cambodia’s telecom sector.
Fact
Viral video is edited.
A video allegedly showing CNN reporting about Nepal’s Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s investment in Cambodia’s telecom sector has gone viral on TikTok.
The video goes viral on the heels of the arrest of Durga Prasain, a controversial media entrepreneur, on charges of disseminating false information on social networking sites about Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli. Prasain had recently revealed documents alleging that PM Oli had invested Rs 32.50 billion in a Cambodian telecom company.
Against his backdrop, TikTok user @sahila_bhai posted a video allegedly showing live reporting on CNN about Prime Minister Oli. The video showing a live conversation from the scene shows several images of Prime Minister Oli. Text superimposed on the video reads, “What is the truth about the International language? Who would be investigated now: TikToker, journalists, creators, government or the accuser? Nepal.”
News audio accompanying the video says, “Oli has over 41 crores deposited in his bank account in Geneva. All of this money has been invested in the form of long-term deposits and shares. Not just that, Oli has reportedly also invested in Cambodia’s Telecommunication sector. And then in December 2018, Nepal Telecom tied-up with Huawei to create a digital action rule. Oli’s wealth over the years since he became the prime minister has grown rapidly. Many of the Chinese business plans have also seemed successful under his leadership in Nepal. As far as China is concerned, it is making inroads into the economically weaker nations. Beijing’s expansionary path is quite simple, it uses the corrupt leaders of these nations to penetrate into the nation’s polity. There have been multiple corruption charges levelled against Oli…”
The video posted on November 20 has garnered 19.5k likes, 3302 users have shared it and 803 people have commented until the time of publishing this article.
Newschecker found the claim to be misleading.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the veracity of the claim, Newschecker first split the video into several key frames and ran reverse searches on several platforms. The reverse searches on several platforms led us to multiple videos featuring CNN News anchor Erin Burnett talking live. Our search results clearly indicated that the same video of Erin Burnett talking live from a scene via Skype was reproduced by many people from around the world and shared on several platforms. (See the results here, here, here & here)
We then ran a Google search for the sentences used in the audio of the viral video. The search led us to a video, dated July 14, 2020, posted on the Facebook page of WION channel of India. On checking the video, we found that the audio from 0.21-minute onwards exactly matched the viral video. In the video, WION news anchor Molly Gambir reports about the allegation of Prime Minister Oli’s rapidly increasing personal wealth, his deposits in his bank account in Geneva and his investment in Cambodia’s telecommunication sector. The news clip reported that China is bribing KP Oli to influence Nepal polity based on a report by Global Watch Analysis.
Earlier this year in November, Medical entrepreneur Durga Prasai had claimed that Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli had invested $210 million in a company in Cambodia. He had also made public the video of an alleged document showing Oli’s investment in Cambodia. However, Prasain later admitted that the documents he made public were fabricated.
Thus, our findings clearly showed that the viral video shows a CNN news clip edited by using unrelated images of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli with an old audio from India’s WION channel laid on top.
Conclusion
No, the viral video doesn’t show CNN reporting about Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s alleged involvement in corruption. The viral video is edited by collating unrelated video, audio and photos.
Result: Altered Video
Sources
WION /Facebook, July 14, 2022
Ratopati, Nov 29, 2024
My Republica , Nov 21, 2021
Himalayan Times, Nov 20, 2021
Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
