Did President Donald Trump order a replica of the Nobel Peace Prize to display on his desk in the Oval Office? No, that's not true: it was made up by a satire website seeking to mock Trump. It did not really happen (although many people wouldn't be surprised if it did, which is why we are writing this article).
The joke originated from an article published on May 16, 2018 by The Borowitz Report that was titled "Trump Orders Replica Nobel Peace Prize to Display on His Desk" (archived here) and which opened:
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)--Donald J. Trump has ordered a replica of the Nobel Peace Prize and is displaying it prominently on his desk in the Oval Office, the White House confirmed on Wednesday.
The replica of the Nobel medallion is mounted on what the White House described as a "tasteful black-velvet background" with an engraved plaque reading, "Donald J. Trump, 2018 Winner."
At the daily White House briefing, the press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said that Trump "took the initiative" to award himself the Peace Prize rather than "waiting around" for the Nobel committee, in Oslo, to bestow it on him.
Although there has been talk about nominating Donald Trump for the prize, he hasn't ordered a replica yet as far as we know:
Calls for Trump to Get a Nobel Peace Prize Are Getting Louder
Donald Trump's supporters are pushing for him to win the Nobel Peace Prize - a move that's being met by smirks and eye rolls in Europe
The story actually appeared in the satire column of The New Yorker ("The Borowitz Report" by Andy Borowitz) which was acquired in 2012 by the magazine. Although the section with the columns and all the articles in it are clearly marked as satire the stories frequently get confused for real news by people who only see the title and summary on social media and who assume it must be real because the link goes to the actual website of The New Yorker. To them it would look somewhat like this, with an easy to miss "Not the news" being the only indication it is not real:
In part to combat this the main page of The Borowitz Report comes with a clear heading that simply states:
Satire from the Borowitz Report
To be safe, whenever you see a link that goes to any article on the "newyorker.com" website, always check if the rest of the link says "/humor/borowitz-report/" somewhere. If it does, don't believe a thing you read...
We wrote about newyorker.com before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:
- Fake News: Trump Did NOT Delete Nine Tweets While Attempting to Spell "Subpoena"
- Fake News: Bezos Did NOT Say Pee Tape Will Be Free for All Amazon Prime Members
- Fake News: Mexico Did NOT Agree to Pay for Trump's Psychiatric Care
- Fake News: Sinclair TV Anchor Did NOT Suddenly Begin Reading News in Russian
- Fake News: Trump Did NOT Order Parade to Celebrate His Hypothetical Act of Heroism in Florida School
