News website News24 was forced to apologise to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation after publishing an article claiming the organisation was planning to test a Covid-19 vaccine in Africa.
The article was subsequently retracted and the apology published.
The website said the original article had sourced the claim from a clip featuring Bill Gates in conversation with Trevor Noah on The Daily Show, the American satirical news show. In the clip, Gates spoke about how he would be supporting African efforts to fight Covid-19 with testing kits and research. Nowhere in the clip does Gates say he will be testing a vaccine in Africa.
News24 editor-in-chief Adriaan Basson said: ‘This is a sad ending to a phenomenal week for our great team, who have worked tirelessly to tell the devastating story of Covid-19 to our readers. I am deeply embarrassed by this mistake and apologise to Mr Gates for any harm caused. We will learn from this episode and move forward.’
Last week, Basson tweeted photos of individuals who were allegedly breaking the lockdown regulations.
Commentators wondered if Basson was doing this in his capacity as a journalist, or whether he had been seconded to the South African Police Service to enforce the law.
[Picture: World Economic Forum, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24154093]