It looks like, Dawn, the top newspaper of Pakistan, might as well be promoting fake news. The main headline of today’s edition claims that PTI chief Imran Khan had assets worth 3.8 billion rupees, citing Khan’s asset declaration on his nomination papers.

Imran Khan in fact, declared his assets as worth 38 million only.

PTI leader Shireen Mazari took to twitter and berated Dawn for what she termed as, “delib[erate] fake news”.

Now it might very well be an honest mistake, nonetheless, it is quite sloppy act and would shake the trust of its readers a bit, if not much. It gives an impression that the leading newspaper of the country would publish a story with total disregard for fact checking. It is a big embarrassment for a newspaper that boasts being the epitome of journalistic standards.

Disregarding the issue that whether it was deliberate attempt to misinform the public, as Ms. Mazari calls it, or just a mistake, in both scenarios, it is an embarrassing situation for the paper.

Dawn has not issued any statement to explain their point of view.