An impostor news report doctored to look like articles on DAWN.com has been circulating online with a story on PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan allegedly complaining about institutional overreach.
All news stories by DAWN will appear on its website or can be checked on its official social media accounts:
- Instagram: @dawn.today
- Facebook: Dawn.com
- X: @dawn_com
We break down the various inconsistencies in the impostor news report and how it differs from authentic articles on the website.
URL
The URL or website address of a normal news report on the site appears in the following format: https://www.dawn.com/news/serialnumber
However, the URL of the impostor news report is presented with the following address: https://dawn.newspot.live/
Headline format
The headline of a typical Dawn.com news story typically follows the sentence-case format where only the first letter of the first word is capitalised, apart from any names or proper nouns.
However, the title of the impostor article says, “Pakistan in Crisis: Institutions Overstepping and Political Actors Uniting in Patriotic Duty”, with the first letters of all words apart from “in” and “and” in upper-case.
Missing icons and plugins
As can be seen in a comparison of the impostor article with a genuine news report on the website, the former features the following missing icons and plugins:
- WhatsApp share button besides the print icon
- “LISTEN TO ARTICLE” button along with the playstream showing the total time of the audio with buttons for changing the volume and playback speed
- Button for “JUMP TO COMMENTS” besides the invitation button to join DAWN’s WhatsApp channel
Presence in byline archive
All stories can be found in the archives of their respective bylines/authors by clicking on the byline, which takes a user to the author’s page listing all the stories from that contributor.
However, the impostor article cannot be found in the October 26, 2025, archives for the “Our Correspondent” byline.
The article can also not be found in the overall October 26, 2025 archive for the website.
Prompt to refresh page
A normal article on the DAWN.com website does not prompt or ask users to confirm before reloading and refreshing the page. However, the impostor article provides a prompt that asks users to confirm whether they want to reload the site at the risk of changes that were made not being saved.
Inconsistencies in picture
The picture used in the imposter article also presents several glaring issues.
Firstly, it has no caption that describes the image, such as its subject, location, date and source.
Secondly, the image is a digital creation using a picture of the PTI chairman with the text of the headline, which is not standard practice for a DAWN.com article, which instead uses plain screenshots and images devoid of any text overlay.
Stylistic issues
The overall report features several stylistic issues that differentiate it from a standard DAWN.com news report.
Standard news reports utilise the “inverted pyramid” format for a story whereby the introductory paragraph normally features the following key information: what, who, where, why and how, or the subject, the date, the location and the action or main development.
However, not only is the introductory paragraph of the impostor report overly long, but it also features a combination of news story reporting and opinion-based analytical commentary when the two are normally kept separate.
The fake report is then not elaborated and developed upon as a typical news story and reads more like commentary or an opinion piece.
Lack of disclaimer and tag
The “Our Correspondent” byline is used by stories that are published first in the newspaper before being uploaded to the website.
Such stories, when reproduced on the website, have a disclaimer at the bottom that says: “Published in Dawn” and the date of the day.
All stories with the “Our Correspondent” byline have this disclaimer, yet the impostor news report does not. Similarly, it also does not feature the “NEWSPAPER” tag that denotes it as a print story.
More tips to spot fakes
Apart from the format issues identified above, here are more tips that can help you determine fake or doctored DAWN articles.
1. Perform a keyword search
If in doubt, perform a keyword search using the main elements from a headline. If true, the results will either bring up the authentic DAWN article or similar reports from other publications on the same development.
If the search yields nothing, then that viral image or story you saw is more likely to be fake.
2. Specific DAWN website keyword search
For a more specific keyword search, showing only results from DAWN’s website, perform the following:
- Enter the following format on your search engine: “Name of article site:Dawn.com”
- The results will only yield relevant articles and reports from the DAWN website
- If the story is authentic, it will likely pop up in the first hit
3. Check archives
Depending on whether or not the doctored images and stories have datelines to go with them, as in the fake F-16 story above, you can corroborate whether DAWN actually published such a story. Here’s how:
- Go to the Dawn.com homepage
- Click on the ARCHIVE section in the top bar
- Select the date on the calendar for which you want to see all stories published
Performing the above for the impostor story yielded no such report on the news outlet’s website for Oct 26, 2025.
Pattern of repetition
This was not the first attempt to mislead the public by circulating fake news using the DAWN brand.
Screenshots of news stories doctored to look like articles on DAWN.com have been circulating on social media since at least March, with certain images posted in the form of sponsored ads on social media platforms leading to dubious links.
In April 2020, a fake social media post doctored to pose as DAWN.com surfaced on Facebook and Instagram, attempting to mislead the public by suggesting that then-army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa had been “possibly infected” with Covid-19 and falsely claimed that he was under self-quarantine.
In October 2018, another fake screenshot of a news story attempted to mislead the public by suggesting that PML-N leader Maryam Nawaz was expecting and falsely claimed that “DAWN news” had obtained her medical reports.
Earlier in August that year, yet another screenshot of a fake news story falsified to look like an article on DAWN.com had surfaced on social media, in an attempt to mislead the public by implying that then-PTI leader Faisal Vawda had withdrawn a petition against the alleged corruption of Karachi mayor Wasim Akhtar.
In a similar occurrence, in June 2018, a fake Facebook post screenshot doctored to pose as DAWN.com was shared on social media. It attempted to misinform the public and stakeholders by suggesting that Afghanistan had accepted the Durand Line as an official border.
The doctored image led the Afghan National Security Council to issue a press release that mistakenly assumed the post was legitimate.
