German magazine cover doctored to feature South Korean ruling party chief
- Published on February 1, 2024 at 05:04
- Updated on February 2, 2024 at 02:30
- 4 min read
- By SHIM Kyu-Seok, AFP South Korea
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"Influential German magazine Spiegel: Han Dong-hoon is South Korea's Kennedy," reads a Korean-language Facebook post that shared the doctored magazine cover on January 30, 2024.
The fabricated cover appears to show Han Dong-hoon pictured alongside the headline: "Han Dong Hoon: John F. Kennedy of South Korea."
The post was shared in a 33,000-member Facebook group supporting South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, whose People Power Party (PPP) aims to regain a parliamentary majority in crucial elections in April (archived link).
Han -- a close Yoon ally and former justice minister in his cabinet -- was announced as the PPP's new leader in December 2023 in a bid to revitalise the party's low approval ratings ahead of the polls (archived link).
Local media have tipped Han as a future presidential contender, with some comparing him to former US president John F Kennedy (archived links here and here).
The fabricated magazine cover was shared widely on Facebook, including here, here, here and here. Some Facebook users appeared to believe it was genuine.
"He is South Korea's prize, now known around the world as its own Kennedy," one person commented.
"Foreigners truly have discerning eyes and accurate judgment," another wrote.
Manipulated cover
A closer examination of the doctored cover shows the edition number "Nr. 7" and date "8.2.2020" printed in the top-right corner.
A keyword search using those clues found the image corresponds to the February 2020 edition of Der Spiegel which was published on February 7, 2020 (archived link).
That edition's cover featured German politician Björn Höcke, who represents the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
Höcke, who leads the party's branch in the state of Thuringia, triggered a government crisis at the time after allying with the CDU and FDP parties to bring down the state's left-wing Minister President, according to the cover report.
Under his photo, it says “Der Dämokrat” -- a play on the German words for "democrat" and "demon". The term translates to "the demoncrat” in English.
The cover story's subtitle translates as: "How flirting with Höcke's AfD is poisoning the Berlin Republic".
The secondary cover lines below the main cover story are the same in the fabricated and genuine image. They detail stories on issues such as the 1945 bombing of Dresden, unemployment benefits and hydrogen energy.
Der Spiegel spokesman Guido Schmitz said the fabricated magazine cover featuring Han was "not a real SPIEGEL title" and that the original edition "had Björn Höcke on the cover".
"We have not published a cover story on Mr Han Dong-hoon," he told AFP.
A higher resolution version of the genuine cover showing Björn Höcke can be seen on the website of a South Korean online bookstore (archived link).
When the genuine Der Spiegel cover was published, Han was a senior prosecutor in South Korea's state prosecution service and had not yet entered politics.
A reverse image search on Google found the photo of Han featured on the doctored cover was published by South Korea's News1 (archived link).
According to the report, it shows him speaking at an International Criminal Court seminar in Seoul in November 2023, when he was still South Korea's justice minister.
February 2, 2024 Corrected image caption to "February 2020"
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