Wrote: Fatbardh Dema
Through the title of a the article It was alleged that security expert Drizan Shala stated that "There are 22 Serbian military bases on the border with Kosovo, citizens are taking up arms."
The article with this title was published yesterday (December 2) by the television portal TopChannel, "top-channel.tv".
What's wrong with this title?
After fact-checking conducted by hibrid.info, apart from the title, the content of the article published by "top-channel.tv" does not mention at any time that Shala said "citizens take up arms".
Shala was invited to the show "Top Story" to talk about the explosion that occurred on November 29 in the “Ibër-Lepenc” water canal in Zubin Potok.
Hibrid.info has found the video material taken from this show, which is also found in the "Top-Channel.tv" article, where Shala is not heard to have mentioned the sentence at any time. "citizens take up arms". (see here)
Also, such a sentence was not said by Shala at any time during this show. (see here the full show)
What did Shala say?
Shala spoke about the explosion that occurred on November 29 in the "Ibër-Lepenc" canal, while mentioning that Serbia, on the border with Kosovo, has 22 military bases.
"It is a trajectory that crosses 350 kilometers of the border strip between Kosovo and Serbia, and in this strip there are 22 military bases and 22 police bases of the Serbian gendarmerie, established before 1980. After the last war, they were used to carry out certain logistical actions towards Kosovo. And they have not moved since then. They are military bases that are used by Serbian military structures, most of which are ground forces," he said among other things.
This article published by “top-channel.tv”, was also distributed by several other Albanian-language media outlets, which appear not to have verified the content, posting it with the same title “Shala: There are 22 Serbian military bases on the border with Kosovo, citizens are taking up arms”. (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here)
Analyze:
Through the title of an article, it was claimed that Drizan Shala, who speaks in his capacity as a security expert, while talking about Serbian military bases on the border with Kosovo, also mentioned the sentence "citizens take up arms".
After verification of the facts conducted by hibrid.info, it was confirmed that Shala never made such a statement.
This article with this title was initially published by the portal "top-channel.tv". It was later distributed in several other Albanian-language media outlets.
Based on its work methodology, hibrid.info assesses this article as "Disinformation" and "Unverified Content".
Reasoning:
"Disinformation" is defined as information content that contains a "mix" of inaccurate sources or even half-truthful attributes, and that is created and/or distributed with the deliberate intention of causing harm. The motive behind the producers/distributors of disinformation content lies in achieving a political, financial, psychological or social goal.
The "Unverified" rating is given to those informative contents that do not provide sufficient information to confirm the claims made in the report, and which could not be verified due to certain circumstances (speed, lack of sources) during the publication of the content.