The fake news media thought it had a “scoop” last night, as a video on a third party YouTube account embedded on a Breitbart London story went missing.
The video features Brexit leader Nigel Farage thanking former Breitbart News Chairman Stephen K. Bannon and the Breitbart News Network for reporting real news during the Brexit campaign, against the plethora of fearmongering and lies by the BBC and Britain’s establishment media.
The New European paper (Archant) and iNews (Daily Mail group) seized upon the disappearance of the video from YouTube, implying there was some conspiracy regarding Farage, Bannon, and Cambridge Analytica.
But the Breitbart London story remained up on the site, as did Farage’s quotes. The videos also remained on Breitbart’s social media channels.
Neither iNews nor the New European asked Breitbart London for comment before publishing their stories, which came on the same day as Breitbart London editor in chief Raheem Kassam posted a picture of Bannon, Farage, and himself on Instagram.
The two outlets have now corrected their stories, but not before setting off mounds of Twitter speculation as to why the video no longer existed.
An editor’s note explains in the original story:
A version of this video was embedded below, not from an official Breitbart London YouTube channel. The video was subsequently deleted — amongst a group of others — by whomever controls that YouTube page. The deletion of the video (though not this article) set off speculation amongst the fake news media over why the video was deleted. To be clear again, Breitbart London did not delete the video, and we have re-uploaded it in full, below. The video has consistently remained on our social media channels, and this article was never altered or deleted. Breitbart London was not contacted by any of the “news” outlets writing about this before they went to publish. We have approached them for corrections.
iNews has since added the following paragraph to their “story“:
However, Breitbart London editor Raheem Kassam told i that the original video was uploaded to an unofficial Breitbart London channel, and that its deletion coincided with the disappearance of a number of videos embedded on the site. He said a former staffer may have set up and then deleted the unofficial YouTube channel they were using to embed videos into the website.
The New European has also conceded:
Breitbart have said the video was not from an official Breitbart London YouTube channel and was subsequently deleted, among a group of others, by whoever controls that YouTube page.
Neither of the outlets have offered an apology for publishing fake news.
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