The Press Trust of India on Friday issued a clarification and fired a photographer for uploading an image of the flooding at the Chennai airport in December 2015 (pictured above) as one of a supposedly waterlogged Ahmedabad airport on Thursday. “PTI deeply regrets the error and has terminated the services of the concerned photographer,” the news agency said after Information and Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani called for a corrigendum on Twitter.
The PTI Photo service on Thursday had uploaded a photograph of planes standing in waterlogged hangars at Chennai’s Kamraj airport, but with the caption, “Aeroplanes stand in a queue at the waterlogged Sardar Patel International Airport, after heavy monsoon rains in Ahmedabad on Thursday.”
After a number of publications, including The Indian Express and the Hindustan Times, used the image on their front pages, many readers pointed out that the image was from Chennai and not Gujarat. Irani then asked PTI to notify media houses about the error.
PTI on Friday issued an advisory to editors of publications, clarifying that the image they had uploaded was incorrect and that they “deeply regretted the inconvenience caused”. “On Thursday 27th July, photo number PTI7 27 2017 000164 B has been killed by the PTI Photo service due to incorrect information,” the agency said.
The Indian Express, too, admitted the error. “The PTI photo on the Express Front Page is not of the Ahmedabad airport,” the newspaper said on Twitter. “PTI News captioned it wrong and is investigating. We deeply regret the error.”
As it happens, the Ahmedabad airport has faced some waterlogging because of the current spell of torrential rain in Gujarat, which has caused severe floods in the state. However, flights continue to run as scheduled.
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