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Faked Gary Lineker story leads to crisp boycott call

A faked regional daily story led to social media users calling for a boycott of Walkers Crisps in the wake of the Gary Lineker refugee Twitter storm.

A mocked up screenshot of a supposed Coventry Telegraph article was posted by satirical online magazine Vive Charlie after Mr Lineker was criticised in The Sun for branding the treatment of Syrian refugees as “racist and heartless” on the social media website.

The screenshot, pictured below, showed a Telegraph article, purportedly posted on 14 October, about a raid on a Walkers Crisps factory in Coventry which saw more than 50 suspected illegal immigrants detained.

The story quoted a Walkers spokesman as saying the company used illegal workers to increase profits and pay Mr Lineker “his agreed commissions” for advertising its products, while the Match of the Day presenter himself was also quoted as saying he was working on a way of getting more refugees from Calais into the country legally to “pay them lower hourly rates as children”.

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The spoof was based on a modified version of an article the Telegraph ran in 2005, which makes no reference to the former England footballer, but some Twitter uesers were taken in by the prank – with several calling for a boycott of Walkers.

The Telegraph has since run a clarification on its website debunking the hoax.

Chief reporter Simon Gilbert told HTFP: “We were initially surprised when the spoof article emerged on social media, but we were even more surprised to see that some people seemed to believe it was genuine.

“We were quick to clarify that the article was a fake and was actually a modified version of a story from 2005 which had no link to Gary Lineker.

“This episode underlines the importance of verified and trusted news sources in today’s social media driven world. With the opportunity for misinformation to spread so rapidly, thanks to sites such as Facebook and Twitter, the need for professional and high quality journalism has never been more crucial.

“As a respected local institution, the Coventry Telegraph is committed to leading the way in this regard and we will continue to provide our readers with fact-based stories they can trust.”