American Journalist Mocked Indian Journalist In The Recent Trump-Modi Joint Press Conference? The Viral Video Is Old.

Recently PM Narendra Modi visited President Donald Trump at the White House and they held a joint press conference. Following this, a video of a press conference went viral on social media where a woman can be seen laughing at a man speaking there. Sharing the video, users are claiming that the woman is an American journalist who mocked the Indian journalist at the Modi-Trump joint press conference. Sharing the video on Facebook, a user wrote, “American journalists are laughing at the stupidity of India’s brainless journalists during the joint Trump-Modi press conference!”

Facebook Link | Archived Link.

However, as we investigated, we came to know that the claim was misleading. The video is old and not related to the Trump-Modi joint press conference. Here’s the Fact Check.

We started our investigation by taking some screenshots from the viral video and conducting a reverse image search. This led us to a report published in India Today on 28 February 2020 that contained an image similar to the screenshots from the viral video. 

The report read, “US President Donald Trump addressed the media at a conference on coronavirus at the White House, Washington DC, on February 26. A video of a New York Post journalist making fun of an Indian reporter during the conference has surfaced on the internet and has left netizens furious.

In the video, which is now viral, an Indian journalist can be seen asking a question about India-US relationships post Trump’s maiden visit to the country. While the reporter was asking the question, the NY Post reporter, who was sitting behind him, was seen making faces at him…”

According to the report, the woman was identified as Ebony Bowden, an American journalist and the man was an Indian journalist Raghubir Goyal.

Taking this clue, using relevant keywords, we found a longer version of the video uploaded on a YouTube channel on 27 February 2020. The viral clip can be seen from the timestamp 22:30.

Archived Link

The description of the video reads, “Donald Trump holds a press conference to update the public on the status of the Coronavirus outbreak at The White House on February 26, 2020.”

Further, we found the same video on a Facebook page on 27 February 2020. From the timestamp 28:14, we can hear the question asked by the journalist in the viral video.

The same video can be seen below from the timestamp 25:40.

We found other news reports about the incident. Please read here and here.

This makes it clear that the viral video is old and not related to the recent Trump-Modi joint press conference in the US.

Conclusion 

From our investigation, we can say that the claim is misleading. The viral video is not related to the recent Trump-Modi joint press conference in the US. The video is from a press conference by Donald Trump along with health officials about the coronavirus in February 2020.