By Umamah Bakharia

The International News Media Association has withdrawn the fake Tembisa 10 entry from its Global Media Awards shortlist.

South African National Editors’ Forum- SANEF earlier says they were appalled that the story made it onto a shortlisted piece of journalism for the upcoming Awards.

The story made headlines across the world last year after Pretoria News editor Piet Rampedi claimed that a South African woman had broken a world record by giving birth to ‘decuplets’. However, there has been no trace of the delivery of the babies by various government departments, hospitals and social workers that investigated the case.

Radio Islam spoke to SANEF Monica Laganparsad on the story that grappled the nation and turned out to be fake news.

The story was debunked by the Independent newspaper’s own internal enquiry which found that the story had failed passed the basic principles of journalism.

“SANEF is rather appalled because this story being given this kind of credence its been given and that it was nominated for an award, it was an embarrassment to South African journalism,” says Laganparsad.

Due to this, credibility in journalism within the country is failing, she says.

“It’s a story that just keeps on going [and] when you think about the important work that [the publication] can be doing, its unfortunate,” says Laganparsad.