Doctored report circulates about daughter of former S. Korean president’s drink driving case
The image was also shared elsewhere on Facebook, as well as on the South Korean forum Naver Band here and here.
Social media users left comments criticising Moon, indicating they believed the response seen in the image was genuine.
“A first drink driving incident? Moon hasn’t grasped the seriousness of this case,” one user wrote.
“What a ridiculous excuse, this crazy nutjob,” another said.
But the chyron in the screenshot has been doctored.
As of October 8, Moon has yet to issue an official statement on his daughter’s DUI case, though his party issued a brief response that said “drink driving must never happen” (archived link).
Doctored screenshot
A keyword search using some of the text in the chyron and “Yonhap News TV” found the original report was published on YouTube on May 19, 2024, months before Moon Da-hye’s reported drink driving incident (archived link).
The report is titled: “Responding to Moon’s memoirs, which touted ‘the first solo trip by a first lady,’ the People Power Party calls for a special counsel investigation.”
South Korean prosecutors launched a probe into allegations that Moon’s wife Kim Jung-sook invited herself on a diplomatic trip to India in November 2018, which Moon described as “the first standalone diplomacy by a first lady” in his memoir published in May (archived links here and here).
The East Asian country’s ruling and opposition parties have traded barbs over the issue, with Moon calling the claims “pathetic and embarrassing” attempts to denigrate the trip (archived link).
The altered screenshot corresponds to the Yonhap report’s 47-second mark, but the chyron instead reads: “Moon ‘Still there are distortions of malicious intent…this was the first solo foreign trip by a first lady.'”
Below is a screenshot comparison between the doctored news image (left) and the original report from Yonhap News TV (right):
The same report was published on Yonhap News TV’s website (archived link).
Multiple local news organisations issued reports here and here with similar headlines after Moon’s memoir was released, quoting Moon saying his wife’s India visit was “the first solo trip by a first lady” (archived links here and here).
AFP previously debunked posts that misleadingly suggested Moon went on television to defend his wife’s India trip.
