While people allegedly suffering from "Trump Derangement Syndrome" might really believe it happened, a story gaining traction on social media saying Donald Trump and family boarded a Russian jet to seek exile in Moscow is a work of satire and not factual reporting.
The story originated from an article published on July 27, 2018 titled "Trump Family Flees to Moscow" (archived here) which opened:
Trump reportedly was in a tremendous hurry to catch the plane and left behind only a one-sentence note, reading, "THERE WAS NO COLUSION [sic]."
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:
Trump Family Flees to Moscow
Trump reportedly was in a tremendous hurry to catch the plane and left behind only a one-sentence note, reading, "THERE WAS NO COLUSION [sic]."
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 Demand That N.F.L. Players Stand During Russian National Anthem
- Fake News: China Did NOT Slap Two-Thousand-Per-Cent Tariff On Tanning Beds
- Fake News: Kim Jong Un Did NOT Offer to Host Peace Talks Between United States and Canada
- Fake News: Macron, Trudeau Did NOT Say They Weren't Going to Tell Trump Where G-7 Afterparty Was
- Fake News: Trump's Lawyers Did NOT Argue That He Cannot Be Impeached Because He Was Never Actually Elected
