A 'blooper' that wasn't: TOI headline claiming 'Modi and Xi will mate' six times is fake, newspaper clarifies

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese premier Xi Jinping held an ‘informal summit’ in Wuhan, Twitter was in splits over a _’_blooper’ in The Times of India. An image of an article purportedly headlined ‘Modi and Xi mate six times in 24 hours’ went viral on Friday. However, the newspaper has now clarified that the image — which was shared by various prominent personalities, including journalists — was photoshopped to replace the original word ‘meet’ with ‘mate’.

The original article as published in their print edition on 27 April carried a headline, sans any typographical error, that read: Modi, Xi will meet 6 times in 24 hours. Firstpost could not identify the original source of the fake image but it was tweeted out by prominent Twitter users.

Even without analysing the image threadbare, a slight smudge or a change in texture is visible around the word ‘mate.’ However, some Twitter users pointed out that there was a difference in the text font and size too if one were to zoom the image sufficiently. As soon as the clarification was issued by the newspaper, several Twitter users promptly retracted their posts and instead shared the newspaper’s clarification.