Claim: The cover of The Economist’s 9 October Asia edition features an image of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, accompanied by text stating, “Imran Khan Will Win The Next Elections.”
Fact: The Economist never published such a cover and the image appears to be doctored. The text on the cover seems to have been taken from the body of an article published in the 9 October 2021 edition.
On 9 October, a photo made to look like a typical cover image of international weekly magazine The Economist surfaced on Facebook. It featured Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan in front of the Pakistani flag, the newspaper’s logo and five headlines, as well as text that read, “Imran Khan Will Win The Next Elections.”
The Facebook posts were also accompanied by the following caption: “Not only may Mr Khan become the country’s first prime minister to complete a full term. He may be the first to serve two consecutive ones.”
The 26-word sentence above is in fact a short snippet from The Economist’s 2,823-word article titled, ‘Pakistan got its way in Afghanistan. Now what?’
Using CrowdTangle, Soch Fact Check traced the photo to fan groups online aligned with Pakistan’s ruling party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). The photo was posted by Facebook user Sahibzada Hamza Nawab to his eponymous page.
(LEFT) The first post by Moeed Pirzada at 10:14pm; (RIGHT) The post by Global Village Space at 10:50pm; and (CENTRE) the post by Alamgir Khan with the highest number of interactions a few hours later at 2:18am
Upon further inspection, Soch Fact Check learned that the photo was posted for the first time by Moeed Pirzada, a Pakistani commentator who hosts the 92 News programme, ‘Hard Talk’. It was then shared by media company Global Village Space and Alamgir Khan, a PTI lawmaker from Karachi and the man behind Fixit, a non-profit organization that claims it “highlights and fixes social, civic and political issues faced by a common man”.
To understand how viral the photo had become, Soch Fact Check used CrowdTangle to look up different combinations of the phrases listed below:
● “Not only may Mr Khan become the country’s first prime minister to complete a full term. He may be the first to serve two consecutive ones”
● “Khan first prime minister full term two consecutive ones”
● “وزیراعظم عمران خان دی اکانومسٹ ٹرم مسلسل دوسری”
● “عمران خان دی اکانومسٹ”
The search turned up approximately 70 posts that featured these phrases. The posts, including those with only one phrase from The Economist’s article, garnered over 23,000 total interactions.
Soch Fact Check ascertained that the photo first shared by Moeed Pirzada, who has a verified Facebook profile, is doctored. The photo then gained considerable traction after being shared by Alamgir Khan and Global Village Space — both verified as well. Another verified website, Daily Ausaf, also published a piece featuring the image on 10 October.
(LEFT) A screenshot of The Economist’s article titled, ‘Pakistan got its way in Afghanistan. Now what?’ with the associated photo; (RIGHT) A screenshot of the list of articles that appeared in The Economist’s 9 October Asia edition
The doctored cover image is entirely out of step with any cover image previously used by The Economist. A browsable archive of The Economist’s covers can be found here, while all the articles that appeared in the 9 October Asia edition can be found here.
Typically, the magazine’s cover includes a background image or illustration, its logo on the top left corner, and a list of four prominent headlines from that particular issue. Under the headlines, there is another line, aligned with the logo, which states the date and week the edition was published.
In the doctored cover, however, the date line has been erased and swapped with ‘Now What?’ — the print headline of the article in The Economist’s 9 October Asia edition.
(LEFT) The Economist’s original cover from its 21-27 March 2020 issue with four headlines listed on the top-right corner; (RIGHT) Doctored cover with a list of five headlines, which is inconsistent with The Economist’s usual cover format, as well as text that does not match the text from its Pakistan-Afghanistan article in the 9 October 2021 Asia edition
Interestingly, the four headlines included in the doctored cover date back to the magazine’s 21-27 March 2020 issue. Those headlines are:
● US-China relations in crisis
● The dash to cash
● Ethiopia’s hidden war
● How virus-testing works
The text superimposed on Khan’s photograph in the doctored cover states, “Imran Khan Will Win The Next Elections.” However, the original sentence from The Economist’s story states, “Not only may Mr Khan become the country’s first prime minister to complete a full term. He may be the first to serve two consecutive ones.”
Lastly, The Economist, like other leading magazines, mostly uses original photographs and/or commissions artists to make illustrations for its covers. However, the doctored image featured a photograph of Imran Khan taken on 23 September 2019 when the Pakistani prime minister participated in a bilateral meeting with then-US President Donald Trump (it can now be found in the Flickr archive of the Trump-era White House).
Conclusion: The Economist never published a cover with the text, “Imran Khan Will Win The Next Elections.” It did, however, publish a story in its 9 October 2021 edition, which examined Pakistan’s relationship with Afghanistan and focused on how people are faring under Khan’s regime. The image circulating online is, therefore, doctored.