'Downtown Press' did not publish an article denying Trump assassination attempt

Context

The X (previously Twitter) account "Journalists posting their L's," with 170,000 followers, shared a post (archived here) with a fabricated screenshot of an article allegedly from a news outlet called Downtown Press. 

The alleged article was titled "Stop calling it an assassination attempt," with a subheading reading: "Shots rang out of Trumps golf course yesterday, news flash, there's thousands of guns being shot every second in this country, one just happened to be near Trump."

The screenshot of the article, illustrated with a drawing of Trump being shot at with a water gun, was posted with the caption, "The left has gone insane." It has been viewed more than 820,000 times in less than 24 hours. 

Logically Facts found that the outlet does not exist and the screenshot was fabricated. 

In fact

Our research revealed that no article resembling this headline exists, and we did not find a publication with the name and branding in this screenshot. 

To verify whether the publication existed, we conducted a Google search and a social media search, finding no credible results or official presence for the outlet. A Wayback Machine search also revealed no prior versions of the media outlet or any evidence of its history online.

Furthermore, the earliest iteration Logically Facts found of the alleged article was published on X on September 16 by the aforementioned account, which is notorious for fake headlines (example archived here.)

Logically Facts also found another screenshot of an alleged article from Downtown Press (archived here). It was first shared by the same X account, "Journalists posting their L's," and was supposedly titled "Ryan Garson's daughter wants His Killer freed." Again, we could not find any other records of the screenshot in question. 

As a result, Logically Facts has concluded that the image, while widely shared, has no basis in reality, as there is no record of a publication named Downtown Press.

The verdict

A screenshot circulating on social media purporting to be a headline from an outlet called Downtown Press is fake. The outlet does not exist, and the image is fabricated.

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