Mainstream media around the world have been called out for publishing fake news about President Donald Trump on Nov. 7.

What?

A flurry of misleading headlines were reported globally to highlight that President Trump decided to dump a whole box of fish food into a koi pond while he was in Japan as part of his 13-day Asia trip.

He was standing beside Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who was also feeding the fishes, when he reportedly did it.

Why?

There are two ways to interpret why the misleading news made the headlines.

Firstly, the implication is that it is in line with the media attempting to present President Trump as graceless and clueless about foreign customs, and that he does not care about others, in this case, fishes.

Secondly, the more prosaic explanation is that mainstream media were conforming and reinforcing one another's news point as a result of aping one another in terms of coverage, even though the evidence of what really happened is in plain sight for all and sundry to see.

How?

Some samples of headlines across the globe, including The Straits Times and Hong Kong newspaper, South China Morning Post:

CNN: Trump feeds fish, winds up pouring entire box of food into koi pond

New York Daily News: Photo of Donald Trump dumping fish food into koi pond during Japan visit draws Obama comparisons

New York Magazine: Trump Under Fire for Improper Fish-Feeding Technique

SCMP carried an article about the incident shortly after it occurred:

SCMP subsequently edited their piece to change the caption and headline:

ST also published the same piece of news with the same framing, but was slower than SCMP:

ST subsequently edited their piece to "accurately reflect the event":

[related_story]

Edited video

CNN was notable for going one step further than most, as they even edited a cut of the event to zoom in only on President Trump's actions, while conveniently cutting out Abe's actions:

[video width="633" height="342" mp4="https://static.mothership.sg/1/2017/11/trump-dump-fish-food.mp4"][/video]

Misleading aping of news

This misleading news is worrying because it vindicates President Trump's claim that mainstream media is engaged in producing fake news about him and his administration.

However, in this instance, the calling out of fake news was from the public:

By 8pm on the same day, when it was clear that plenty of mainstream media outlets have made the same mistake, other media came out to seize the opportunity to set the record straight, including Singapore's Channel News Asia with their "Prime Minister Shinzo Abe did it first" caption.