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
Popular web series coming up with the story of secluded folk singer Bishnu Majhi.
Fact
No, the viral video shows Bidhya Chapagain speaking about the show.
A video claiming that popular Nepali web series ‘Herne Kahta’ is coming up with the story about the secluded Nepali folk singer Bishnu Majhi is going viral on TikTok.
Herne Katha is a popular Nepali web documentary series that tells stories from the underrepresented communities of Nepal. Majhi, who has sung many popular Nepali folk songs, has never been seen in public and her songs are released and directed by her husband Sundar Mani Adhikari.
TikTok user @chandrakc987 posted a video showing the presenter of Herne Katha, Bidhya Chapagain speaking. In the video Chapagain says, “Namaste, How are you doing? We were wondering if you were able to see this story from a far-flung place in the midst of this festive season. What’s your take on the Herna Katha series? We are about to reach one million subscribers.” Text superimposed on the video reads, “We are coming up with the real story of Bishnu Majhi this Monday at 8:20 pm. Please follow us.”
The video posted on September 13 has garnered 79.5k likes, and 836 people have shared it until the last count. The archived version of the TikTok video can be seen here.
Newschecker found the claim to be misleading.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the veracity of the claim made in the viral video, Newschecker first split the video into several key frames and conducted reverse searches on them. However, the reverse searches didn’t yield any relevant results.
We then searched the YouTube channel of Herne Kahta and found a video, dated November 20, 2023, whose frame exactly matched the viral video. On checking the video, we found that the viral video was clipped from it. The original video actually showed Chapagain asking the followers of the series if they were able to watch stories from Darchula and Changru.
Further, we checked the YouTube channel and other social media pages of ‘Herne Katha’ if it is coming up with the story of Bishnu Majhi. But we didn’t find anything about the story of Bishnu Majhi.
We reached out to Bidhya Chapagain, who is also a founder and presenter of Herne Katha, via social media and asked the truth behind a video. She told Newschecker that Herne Katha is not covering the story of folk singer Bishnu Majhi.
Thus, our findings clearly indicated that the viral video is misleading.
Conclusion
No, the popular web series ‘Herne Katha’ is not coming up with the story of Nepali folk singer Bishnu Majhi. The viral video is misleading.
Result: False
Sources
Hernekatha /YouTube https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EIqQcvATZUg , Nov 20, 2023
Direct contact with Herne Katha presenter Bidhya Chapagain
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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.
