by Staff writer

The deputy treasurer general of the MDC-T faction led by Advocate Nelson Chamisa, Chalton Hwende and NewsDay journalist Blessed Mhlanga exchanged attacks on social media platform Twitter today  following the newspaper’s retraction of its factually incorrect August 8 lead story titled Chamisa files court challenge.

In the story, NewsDay alleged that the MDC Alliance lawyers had approached the Constitutional Court on August 7, to submit their challenge against President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s 30 July election victory. However, on August 8, the opposition party’s lawyers held a press conference in Harare where they informed that they were yet to file the said court challenge.

“Our story was based on information supplied by senior party officials, who previously had provided accurate insights about the party’s affairs, so we found it difficult to doubt the credibility of the information they were giving about the petition,” wrote the newspaper in a retraction.

Aljazeera journalist, Haru Mutasa started the ‘twitter storm’ when she uploaded a picture of NewsDay retraction under the comment, “what fake news is doing to Zimbabweans.”

Mhlanga, originator of the fake story, felt the need to defend his publication, setting the record straight in the process.

“It wasn’t fake news…It was a post by @hwende. Let’s not categorize misinformation as ‘fake news’,” explained Mhlanga.

Feeling the heat, Hwende had to exonerate himself.

“The post was originally posted by @PatsonDzamara, he apologized and stop dragging my name please,” fumed Hwende.

Mhlanga had to have the last word.

“Uuuum you were elected to parliament, you have to be an Honorable person, stop lying now, the fact that you deleted your post does not mean internet forgets. You made that post,” said Mhlanga.

As if to buttress the line of argument that the newspaper was misled, the same copy which had the retraction also carried a story on the abuse of social media in just-ended election.