A recent Time magazine article used a quote from Canadian satire site, the Beaverton, as a fact in reference to U.S. relationships with other countries.
The article documented comments seemingly made by U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra at an event hosted by the Halifax Chamber of Commerce.
At the event, Hoekstra had slammed Canada for wedging itself in the middle of American politics and blamed the Ontario anti-tariff ad for ending trade negotiations with the U.S.
“‘A Canada that it would be very easy to target with 500% steel tariffs, or one patriot missile aimed at Parliament Hill,’ he added, rather incredulously,” Time quoted Hoekstra as saying.
However, he did not say that.
The Beaverton is a Canadian satirical and parody publication similar to the Onion, where the authors write fictitious articles based on real events.
“When public figures or actual businesses are mentioned by name, the corresponding story details are invented,” the disclaimer on the website read. “In all other cases, any resemblance to actual persons, businesses or events is entirely coincidental.”
The quote in question was made up by the satirical news site for an article called “U.S. Ambassador threatens to tariff, annex, and bomb Canada if anti-American sentiment doesn’t improve.”
The Beaverton’s Ian MacIntyre confirmed to CTVNews.ca on Saturday that the quote was “entirely” made up and did not have a grain of truth to it.
Time magazine issued a correction on Friday.
“The original version of this story incorrectly attributed a quote from a satirical site to Pete Hoekstra, the U.S. Ambassador to Canada,” the correction at the end of the original article said.
The Beaverton article that led to international confusion over Hoekstra’s comments was originally published in September.
However, it took Time magazine two months to revise the article that was first published in October, MacIntyre added.
“I thought (it) would be very obvious. I thought people would get that it was completely a joke,” he said. “But apparently, Time Magazine did not.”
Clare Blackwood, actor, comedian and writer at the Beaverton called it “wild” that it took two months for the error to come to light.
“Everyone thought that they were going to drop a patriot missile on us for two months,” Blackwood said. “And no one said anything.”
Both MacIntyre and Blackwood highlighted the seriousness of this error.
“What research went into this? How did (they) get this Beaverton quote? What sources were (they) using?” Blackwood said, while MacIntyre added that this could be a sign that artificial intelligence may have been used for the research.
“I don’t know that that’s the case. I don’t know what actually happened,” he said. “Surprisingly, Time has not reached out to us, so who knows how that happened?”
He added that people on social media seemed to understand that this was a satire piece.
“I wish that they had accidentally taken a quote from an article of ours that was more benign,” he said. “Something less touchy and with (less) geopolitical implications.”
Blackwood added that this has brought up concerns about how media is being written and how people are fact-checking their information before they publish.
This is not the first time a publication has picked up one of their articles and used it as reference in all seriousness, without realizing that it is satire, they said.
“We are trying to write the goofiest jokes that we can, make light of the news and maybe make a point,” MacIntyre added. “But we’re never trying to trick people.”
