Just days after white supremacist and former presidential counselor Steve Bannon “returned” to Breitbart, the website reported on a group of violent thugs who have been taking advantage of desperate African refugees trying to reach Europe, charging them thousands of euros to smuggle them across the Mediterranean. There was just a glaring problem with the site’s reporting, though—the man featured in the story’s photograph wasn’t one of the described human smugglers roaming the Mediterranean for his next victim, but instead German soccer star Lukas Podolski, photographed while in Brazil for the 2014 World Cup:
In an editor’s note appended to the story, last modified on Sunday, Breitbart London apologized to Podolski for including an image of him in the report on “a gang charging migrants 5,000 euros each to bring them across from Morocco via the Strait of Gibraltar on jet-skis.”
“A previous version of this story included an image of Lukas Podolski on a jet ski. This image appeared as an illustration of a person on a jet ski. Breitbart London wishes to apologise to Mr. Podolski,” Breitbart London wrote. “There is no evidence Mr. Podolski is either a migrant gang member, nor being human trafficked. We wish Mr. Podolski well in his recently announced international retirement.”
Nassim Touihri, Podolski’s manager, told a German newspaper that the situation was “a mess.”
“Lukas distances himself from it and won’t let himself be exploited. Our lawyer is already involved,” Touihri said, according to The Guardian.
As Salon notes, “Breitbart
quickly pulled the photo and then issued a correction, or rather, a strangely defensive ‘editor’s note.’” Of course, when it comes to the website’s history of pushing disproven lies trying to link migrants to crime in Europe, that’s another story. The fact is that a number of these refugees have been killed by human smugglers, and thousands of others have drowned trying to make the journey just this year alone. But don’t expect the website to report on it as a humanitarian issue, which is what it is. Also, as Talking Points Memo noted, Trump touted Bannon’s return “as ‘competition’ for ‘fake news.’” How’s that going, Donald?