Claim: A Facebook user shared a video with the caption, “Salman Iqbal, ARY News CEO, apologises to President Asif Ali Zardari for doing fake propaganda against PPP.”
Fact: The caption of the video is misleading as the clip in question does not contain any mention of Salman Iqbal, CEO of ARY News. The video is from a March 2017 segment of journalist Hamid Mir’s show in which ex-president Asif Ali Zardari spoke about the ex-chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Saif ur Rehman.
On 18 March 2022, Facebook user Ali Ahsan Awan shared a video with the caption, ‘Salman Iqbal, ARY News CEO, apologises to President Asif Ali Zardari for doing fake propaganda against PPP.’ News regarding Zardari allegedly issuing an apology to Iqbal has also been shared on Twitter but nothing in this regard has been confirmed by authentic media organisations or PPP representatives.
Soch Fact Check found the post in question to be misleading as the caption does not accurately reflect the contents of the video. The video is from a 22 March 2017 segment of Hamid Mir’s Geo News programme Capital Talk. In the video, ex-president Asif Ali Zardari can be seen talking about former NAB chairman Saif ur Rehman and the ruling party at the time, PML-N. The complete interview is available on Youtube.
Conclusion: The clip of a Geo News talk show being circulated online does not show ex-president Asif Ali Zardari apologising to Salman Iqbal, contrary to the caption. The caption is misleading as it does not reflect the contents of the video. The video in question features an old interview from 2017 with Zardari, in which the ex-president spoke about NAB ex-chairman Saif ur Rehman and the PML-N government at the time.