Wrote: Fatbardh Dema
The publication of unverified content has led to misinformation in recent days. “Who is the Biden confidant who will be appointed ‘special envoy for Kosovo recognition’?” was the headline of an article published by the Albanian-language media outlet “euronews.al” on Monday (June 3) that was subsequently quoted by other Albanian-language media outlets.
Excerpts from this article:
“United States (US) President Joe Biden should appoint a ‘special envoy for the recognition of Kosovo’ from the European Union (EU) five – Spain, Greece, Slovakia, Romania and Cyprus. Biden nominated Edward Joseph, a lecturer at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, for the position in a recent report. Joseph, in the section dedicated to the US role in the EU-facilitated dialogue for the normalization of Kosovo-Serbia relations, also proposed that in parallel with the appointment of a special envoy for the recognition of Kosovo, the Biden administration should sanction leaders in Albania and Kosovo who promote any ‘unification’ of these two independent countries.”
Link to the publication of "euronews.al":
Re-update and non-verification
Reposting a post by Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani on the advancement of Kosovo's status to associate member in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, American professor Edward Joseph on May 27 republished on X (formerly Twitter) the report titled "From Crisis to Convergence: A Strategy to Overcome Instability in the Balkans, Fundamentally".
The report, right from the first page, indicates that it is dated January 18, 2022. Professor Edward Joseph was the lead author. The report was published by the Wilson Center and the Foreign Policy Institute at Johns Hopkins SAIS. (see here)
Through the "Wayback Machine" platform, which serves to preserve old versions of websites, it can be confirmed that the report dates precisely from January 18, 2022.
Through online search engines, hibrid.info has not been able to find news from the previous days that link the name of Edward Joseph with the US special envoy on the issue of Kosovo recognition (see here)
disinformation
The title of the “euronews.al” article and its introduction have encouraged public misinformation. The title “Who is Biden’s confidant who will be appointed ‘special envoy for Kosovo recognition’” presents it as a done deal that the US will send a special envoy on the issue in question. At the beginning of this article, it starts with the sentence that the US should appoint an envoy, and then in the second sentence it says that “Biden proposed Edward Joseph for this position”. The article refers to “a recent report”.
The article itself continues with Joseph's proposal and even uses part of the 2022 report.
“'The Biden administration could boost the bid for convergence through the simultaneous appointment of a new special envoy dedicated to Kosovo recognition, in parallel with the announcement of US sanctions on leaders in Albania or Kosovo who promote the unification of Kosovo and Albania,' Joseph wrote on recent developments in the Western Balkans,” says the continuation of the "euronews.al" article. This quote is taken from page 65 of the report.
This part of the report discusses the proposal that experts, led by Edward Joseph, give under the heading "Unilateral steps by the Biden Administration: A 'special envoy for the recognition of Kosovo' and sanctions for the 'unification of Kosovo and Albania'".
Distribution in other media
The article published on "euronews.al" turns out to be a distortion of content previously published by "albanianpost.com", dated June 2. While "albanianpost.com" reported that this was Joseph's proposal, "euronews.al" wrote that "Biden proposed Edward Joseph for this position". Without conducting their own verification, dozens of Albanian-language media outlets have published the same content as "euronews.al", which turns out to be misinformation.
Some publications appear to have been deleted. (see here and here)
There were media outlets that presented the issue of appointing a special envoy for the recognition of Kosovo as a done deal. While there were also those that referred to Joseph's proposal that the US should appoint a special envoy.
Media outlets that misinformed through headlines about the appointment of a US special envoy on the issue of Kosovo recognition: kosovapress.com, indexonline.net, eye-vision.tv, syri.net, gazetablic.com.
The media outlets that reported on Joseph's proposal, without mentioning that it was a report published in January 2022: tv21.tv, telegrafi.com, radiokosovaelire.com, argumentum.al, gazetainfokus.com, orainfo.net, botasot.info, periscope.com, gazetaexpress.com, zeri.info.
Some media outlets focused the article on the part where the report proposes that the leaders of Kosovo and Albania, who seek national unity, be sanctioned: gazetablic.com, periscope.com.
After reporting in Albanian-language media, the news has also circulated in several Serbian-language media, referring to Albanian-language media: 021. rs, vesti-online.com, kosovo-online.com.
And on June 4, Radio Kosova broadcast a story in which it stated that Biden had proposed Joseph to be appointed special envoy for the recognition of Kosovo by the European Union countries. For this publication, Radio Kosova later apologized for not verifying the news (see here). The Radio Kosovo topic was also broadcast in other media: indexonline.net, voal.ch, kosova.info.
Based on the working methodology, hibrid.info has assessed this content as “Unverified Content” and “Disinformation”. (See here)