FALSE: Proposed Cabinet list is a hoax
Photo courtesy: Namibian Presidency on Facebook The hoax list appeared in the wake of president Hage Geingob’s new year message, which was delivered on 31 December 2019. In the new year message the president states: “I made it clear during the final Cabinet Meeting of 2019 that we can no longer conduct business as usual. The […]
UNPROVEN: But ‘northern Namibia’ does have a strong claim to ‘bread basket’ title
Image courtesy: www.nab.com.na Despite a solid case, information is incomplete at this point to categorically label the northern regions as the country’s bread basket. On Tuesday, 17 December 2019, a number of news media carried a Namibia Press Agency (NAMPA) story about the state of crop production and recent rainfall across the northern parts […]
FALSE: White Namibians do not own 70% of the land
Photo: Contributed Namibian land ownership data was misrepresented recently in an AFP article that appears to have been widely published. On 8 December 2019, South Africa-based News24 published an article by international news service Agence France-Presse (AFP) that misrepresented Namibian agricultural land ownership data, by wrongly claiming that 70% of Namibia’s land area is […]
No, Stalin didn’t make statement about voting
Quotes purportedly emanating from past world leaders are all the rage as political memes, but are almost always falsely attributed. In the wake of the 27 November 2019 presidential and National Assembly elections in Namibia political memes of quotes falsely attributed to past world leaders have been making the social media and WhatsApp […]
TRUE: Namibia has 121 constituencies
Photo courtesy: Affirmative Reposition (AR) on Facebook The question of the number of constituencies has come up as people have been pondering the outcomes of the 27 November 2019 elections. The 2019 electoral period has revealed that many Namibians are still largely uninformed about many political and electoral aspects, including how many electoral areas […]
WHAT!?: NBC misleads with report on Venaani talking about teenage pregnancy
Image courtesy: www.nbc.na At no point in the report does Venaani say access to information contributes to the Namibian teenage pregnancy rate. On 28 October 2019, the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) ran a story on its television and online news channels under the headline ‘PDM leader says too much freedom of information contributes to […]
EXAGGERATED: GRN response to national flag costumes overblown
Photo courtesy: Unknown (sourced from social media and WhatsApp) The official response to people wearing costumes featuring the national flag has been excessive. On Tuesday, 26 November 2019, the minister of information Stanley Simataa issued a media statement against the use of the national flag in political campaign activities. The minister’s statement reads that he […]
No, ‘Black Friday’ did not originate during American slavery
Image courtesy: snopes.com In what has become an annual ritual of debunking a resilient viral hoax, stories still abound online that the term has it’s origins during the times of US slavery. As the commemoration of the popular annual retail event has spread around the world over recent years, so too have the speculations […]
FALSE: Reporting on Fishrot and Kora scandals is not disinformation
Photo of Alfredo Hengari courtesy: neweralive.na Through either deliberate mislabeling or genuine misunderstanding the presidency recently equated reporting on the Fishrot and Kora Awards corruption scandals to disinformation. This accusation was leveled against media coverage of the two corruption related affairs in a media statement issued by the Namibian presidency on Thursday, 21 November […]
FALSE: President’s statements about Fishrot probes are misleading
Photo courtesy: The Namibian on Twitter President Geingob wrongly made it sound as if the investigations of alleged international corruption were only targeting Namibians. At the ruling party’s last rally in Windhoek, on 23 November 2019, before the 27 November 2019 parliamentary and presidential elections, president Hage Geingob spoke about the fallout from the […]