The image of a man dressed in the uniform of PedidosYa, a delivery company, in a fast food shop circulates since the last July 17 on social networks in shared publications more than 30,000 times presenting him as a 78-year-old Argentine pensioner of 78 years q he works “to feed his wife.” However, they tell a made-up story: although he does make deliveries in Buenos Aires, Jesús Morgado is a 67-year-old Venezuelan who is content to let the nets put words in his mouth that he never said.” You’re the man in the picture!” a few days ago a stranger told him at a fast food place where Morgado was waiting to pick up an order. Overnight, he became a kind of celebrity among app delivery people who tour the city on a daily basis. Posts run on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, as well as on some sites in Spanish and Portuguese. “Grandfather of 78 years works at PedidosYa to eat”, reads in the publications, which include criticism of the president of the Nation, Mauricio Macri, who seeks his re-election.
One of the newsones on Facebook
“The macri government and its henchmen have dynamited the dignity of the people and we see ourselves picking up the pieces so we can continue. Let’s vote consciously (sic) and without hate, tomorrow or later, it can be you, yours, this is shit for everyone. Enough of the absent state and the humiliation towards the people,” he said, one of them, shared more than 15,000 times. The tickets also include an alleged testimony provided by the protagonist of the photo, which, he says, was given to the news channel C5N: “Sometimes I walk or walk when my chest hurts to pedal more than 15 km per day to get $150, with that I feed my wife because retirement is going in remedies.” However, a Google search for those words doesn’t yield any results beyond the same posts or notes on sites that repeat viral content. From the channel, one of Reverso’s allied media, they stated that “it is not real that (the man) has told C5N” and that no such note is in their news files. The place in the photo
After a tour of downtown Buenos Aires, this medium confirmed that the sign showing the available burgers corresponds to the offer of the fast food outlet McDonald’s.
Mounting made on July 24, 2019 with the photo that was virturated (left) and a photo of the same poster in a McDonald’s in downtown Buenos Aires.
In viral publications, some users point out that the price on the left, next to the “big” text, is in euros, so, they claim, the image may not have been taken in Argentina. However, Reverso found that the value of the prosciutto Melt burger large on July 24, 2019 was 340 Argentine pesos and the price was not expressed in euros, as indicated by some comments. The identity of the protagonist
Order Press OfficersAnda Argentina confirmed to this media that they had “identified” the man. However, they refused to provide their personal data. Reverso thus began a tour through the streets of downtown Buenos Aires and dialogued with delivery men from PedidosY that they claimed to have seen the man circulate along the Avenida Corrientes, and in the neighborhood of Caballito. At the request of this medium, a delivery man agreed to share the viral image in a WhatsApp group that gathers delivery people, asking if anyone identified him. There, some users again pointed out that they had seen him, and others added that they had stolen the bicycle he used to work with.
Screenshot of the group chat sent to Reverso on July 25, 2019 by an Orders dealer Already.
A keyword search within the Facebook group “Orders Ya Argentina (dealer officer)” allowed us to find an entry asking for help for an older gentleman who had the bicycle with which he made the deliveries. The publication provided the name and surname of the man concerned, as well as a contact phone to which Reverso was contacted on Friday 19 July last. First-person
Thus, this medium finally managed to find the man of the image: Jesus Morgado. “The picture was taken a few days ago, around the time I had the second bike I worked with. It was at McDonald’s in Rivadavia and Víctor Martínez,” he said during a bar interview in Caballito. As you could check Reverso in the application installed on your phone, Morgado registered its dealer account on the Orders platformAlready on June 10. Asked about the alleged statements he would have given to the C5N channel, he said: “I was never asked anything. I never made such statements. I am not an Argentine retiree, I am Venezuelan, I arrived in the country three months ago.”
Morgado detailed that he is 67 years old and that last April 1he came only to Argentina. I mean, he doesn’t live here with his wife, as the publications falsely pointed out. He first tried to get a job as a pharmacist, from his work experience in Venezuela, which also includes a humorist, but was unsuccessful.” I saw the boys, the delivery men, the corners and I came to find out,” he told of his beginnings with the delivery apps. “In order to begin with, someone recommended that I go and talk to Mr. Enrique, who has a bike shop on Camarones Street, and I met an extraordinary human being, who said to me, ‘Take it for free and you pay me for it,'” he said. The bike relister was, according to Morgado, who helped him again on the two occasions his bicycle was stolen while handing out orders. Unlike the false statements of viral publications, Morgado does not express itself with pain or rejection about his work. Although after the second robbery, discouraged, he thought of leaving Argentina, Morgado expressed to Reverso his thanks to the Argentines and the possibility he has of earning his livelihood in this way. “I face work with pleasure. When I pedal, I find it a dream, to walk through the streets of Buenos Aires, which are beautiful, with their parks and trees so cute…”, he said. In conclusion, the photo that was revealed was taken in Argentina, but its protagonist is not a 78-year-old Argentine retiree who is forced to deliver bicycle orders to feed his wife, as he assured, but a 67-year-old Venezuelan who arrived alone in the country h Who was photographed without their consent at a fast food location in Buenos Aires for three months who never said what circulates on networks. This note is part of Reverso, the collaborative journalistic project that joins more than 100 media and technology companies, including Filo.News, to intensify the fight against disinformation during the campaign.
Author: Nadia NasanovskyEditoras: Cecilia Scholar and Laura Zommer
In this note:
