Story About Fake Beijing Sunrises a Fake; You Probably Should Have Known That

You know that story everybody shared this weekend about how the pollution in Beijing is so bad that residents are flocking to giant LED screens broadcasting artificial sunrises? One or two problems with that.

The story originated with the Daily Mail—headline: “China starts televising the sunrise on giant TV screens because Beijing is so clouded in smog”—and was picked up by a slew of other publications, all of which relayed this dystopian image:

Crazy omg share wow etc. Except according to Paul Bischoff of Tech in Asia, the sunrise is actually part of a tourist ad for the Shandong province that plays on a continual loop, with the sun appearing for only 10 seconds at any given time. The logo in the corner is for Shandong tourism.

Sure enough, most of the Daily Mail’s article doesn’t actually relate to the alleged artificial sunrise, and is instead about Beijing’s admittedly-dangerous level of smog. The money quote, in which a traffic coordinator complains of the worsening smog so thick it masks buildings, was actually pulled from a separate Associated Press story from the day before.

Bischoff called the story “complete bullsh*t.”

“Shame on any media that ran this farce,” he wrote. “Beijing pollution is bad enough without the added dishonest sensationalism.”

According to the Daily Mail’s website, the story has been shared over 218,500 times.

[h/t Tech in Asia / Quartz]

[Image via ChinaFotoPress / Getty Images]

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