This news story describes a falsified “third prison escape” perpetrated by the infamous Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. In addition to the outright fabrication of a third prison break, the article utilizes a host of rhetorical strategies and takes some extreme liberties with facts to support their case. Although this story is certainly fake news, a variety of strategies are used to lend the article the appearance of “truthiness”. This concept of truthiness rests on the idea that making something sound plausible is the only important aspect, even if the actual facts must be pushed aside in the process. In this essay, we will analyze these strategies, which include visual elements, audience appeal, validity of claims, and use of language.
For visual elements, this El Chapo article appears to use both real and fake images to enhance the appearance and credibility of the article. The “New York Post” name at the top of the article represents that the New York Post published this article. A short bit of research determined that the font used for the “New York Post” title in the El Chapo article is consistent with the font used in the real New York Post. When it comes to the font and alignment of the article title though, this aspect seems to fall short. The real New York Post bolds the font
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The article claims that Joaquin Guzman escaped from Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York. After visiting the Federal Bureau of Prisons database, it was discovered that there is no record of Joaquin Guzman, aka El Chapo, being held at MCC New York at this time. Since El Chapo was not held at this maximum security prison at that time, there is no way that he could have escaped from there. Guzman is actually currently being held at Altiplano Federal Prison in Mexico. This clearly disproved the central claim of this article and proved that this is a falsified news