![](https://www.imediaethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/PlasticKazoo-350x120.jpg)
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Australia’s Channel 7 was duped by a fake news story claiming cricket player Cameron Bancroft joined the music band Tame Impala as a kazoo player, the Daily Mail Australia reported.
The fake news story originated in a 2018 post on satire website The Betoota Advocate. The Advocate itself flagged Channel 7’s error, posting on Instagram an image of the Channel 7 report. The image showed Channel 7 said in a graphic that Bancroft “recently returned to band ‘Tame Impala’ as the Kazoo player.”
iMediaEthics has written to Channel 7 to ask for more information about what went wrong.
A post shared by The Betoota Advocate (@betootaadvocate) on Jan 2, 2019 at 2:47am PST
According to News.com.au, “It’s not the first time a media organisation has fallen for one of Betoota’s brilliant but unbelievable tales. In 2014 The Today Show on Channel 9 reported a story that claimed a parking inspector had fined himself, then tried to appeal against his own decision.”