After the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed Wednesday that the United States has seen a 7% increase in inflation since December — which is a 39-year high — Fox News sought to inform viewers. There was just one problem: The network used a photo of empty shelves from a 2011 NPR story about Japan to do it.
A picture of President Joe Biden was superimposed over the photo of the barren aisle with the words “EMPTY SHELVES JOE.”
“Fox News Primetime” guest host Rachel Campos Duffy told her audience, “Throughout the country, supermarket shelves remain barren. From New York to Virginia, all the way to Alaska, people are left without groceries and can’t put dinner on the table and they are upset. No surprise, #BareShelvesBiden was trending on Twitter, but perhaps what is most troubling is this might only be the beginning.”
Though she referenced three states by name and suggested inflation and low stock in stores are a new problem, she did not, of course, note that the graphic the show displayed featured an 11-year-old photo from a different country altogether.
One Twitter user did that for her, though, sharing a side-by-side comparison of the Fox News graphic with a screenshot of the NPR piece, titled, “Japanese Flee Area Near Nuclear Power Plant.”
“Uhh is this the same picture?” Twitter user @Acyn wrote.