The show "Procesi Sportiv" on TopChannel has announced that two players of the Albanian national football team have tested positive for COVID-19, for the match against Belarus, which is expected to take place on September 4.
This information was denied by the Football Federation of Albania (FSHF) through a response, stating that this news is false and tendentious.
This show made this announcement on the social network Facebook, but it was deleted after the denial came from the Albanian Football Association.
Original post from Sports Process:
Denial from the AFF:
refutation
Although the news was published on the website of the show "Procesi Sportiv" stating that two players of the Albanian national team are infected with COVID-19, on the other hand, the Albanian Football Association, in their denial, refers to three media outlets (without mentioning names), which have reported on three footballers. Based on the reaction of the Albanian Football Association, hibrid.info, apart from the article of "Procesi Sportiv", has not been able to find other publications, where it is said that 3 footballers are infected.
Analysis:
After fact-checking by hibrid.info, it turns out that the original post by “Procesi Sportiv” has been deleted and the same was later denied by the FSHF. In the FSHF’s denial, the article published by “Procesi Sportiv” was called fake and tendentious news. In this spirit, hibrid.info has also classified this article as “Denial” and “Fake News”.
Reasoning:
Denial – The “Denial” rating is an additional rating, which is given in cases where the media determines that the published content is in one of the above categories of negative ratings, and in accordance with this knowledge denies it 1) in accordance with the facts 2) in a visible manner, in accordance with the principles of publishing denials.
Media outlets that have published the original verified content, if they have published contact information on their pages, will always be contacted to comment on claims that prove to be controversial, giving each of them the opportunity to correct errors in this way. In such cases, the analysis published on the hibrid.info platform will further indicate that the assessed content was subsequently denied.
Fake news – The "Fake News" rating is given to media reports that are entirely the product of a medium that itself contains factually incorrect claims or information.
Content that is considered fake news can be reliably determined to have been created and distributed with the intent to misinform the public, i.e., to present a claim that is completely false as fact.