Only 2 news outlets corrected fake news regarding late Saudi oil minister Ahmad Zaki Yamani’s OPEC position

Only 2 news outlets corrected fake news regarding late Saudi oil minister Ahmad Zaki Yamani’s OPEC position

LONDON: Only two regional media outlets “” CNN Arabic and London-based Asharq Al-Awsat “” have corrected a mistake relating to coverage of late Saudi Oil Minister Ahmad Zaki Yamani. Following his death on Feb. 23, the aforementioned outlets were two of many that mistakenly reported that he was the first secretary-general of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) “” despite OPEC itself confirming this was not the case. The common mistake was exposed at the time by the Arab News Research & Studies Unit, which tracked coverage of Yamani's death and found that most Saudi and regional media outlets relied on his Arabic Wikipedia page. The Wikipedia entry contained inaccurate and unsourced information. Speaking to Arab News over the phone at the time, a spokesperson for OPEC in Vienna firmly denied that Yamani was ever a secretary-general or the first conference president. He was in fact the fourth “” a role he presided over seven times, first in 1962. CNN Arabic and Asharq Al-Awsat immediately corrected the fallacy. But other outlets “” all of them previously named by Arab News, including Saudi Arabia's Al-Ekhbariya channel, dailies Saudi Gazette and Okaz, and international broadcasters Al Jazeera and RT Arabic