News Story: The news of discovery of gold mines with 3,500 tonnes of gold reserves in Uttar Pradesh’s Sonbhadra district broke in regional newspapers on February 20, 2020. Two days later, much of the Indian media was abuzz with the news that the Sonbhadra mines had gold deposits estimated to be around 3,350 tonnes and worth Rs 12 lakh crore, which is almost five times India’s current gold reserve.The reports quoted a District Mining Officer and estimated that with this find, India’s current gold reserves of 626 tonnes would jump to second place in the world behind the US, which holds 8,133.5 tonnes of gold.Even though the reports mentioned “gold deposits”, they equated it to actual gold mined and added the entire 3,350 tonnes to India’s current gold reserve. Such exuberant reporting continued till later in the day when the Geological Survey of India denied making any such discovery. In this article, Alt News will trace how the Indian media fell for unverified news. 0 pointsThe claim was not verified as the newspaper articles lacked proper source, and their arguments unsubstantiated.The claim of the discovery of 3500 tonnes of gold was verified because several reputed newspapers reported the breakthrough.The arguments made by the newspaper were compelling and the claim was verified by the Geological Survey of India.The claim was not verified and therefore, India has the second highest gold reserve in the world at 3500 tonnes, behind the US at 8133.5 tonnes of gold.