Fact Check

Trophy Strife

Published Sept. 16, 2015

Claim:

FACT CHECK   Was Kim Davis awarded the "prestigious 'ISIS Courage Award' for adhering to Sharia Law"?

Claim:   Kim Davis was awarded the "prestigious 'ISIS Courage Award' for adhering to Sharia Law."

   FALSE

Example:    [Collected via Twitter, September 2015]

Origins:   On 15 September 2015, the fake news web site National Report published an article reporting that Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who famously refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, had become the "First Female to Win the ISIS Courage Award":

Kim’s message of God having the ultimate authority has resonated with thousands, perhaps millions of Christian Americans. Now it has even caught the attention of the Islamic State.

ISIS leader Abu Ali al-Anbari released a statement today saying Kim Davis will be the very first female to win the prestigious ‘ISIS Courage Award’ (ICA) for (translated from Arabic) “Adhering to Sharia Law under threat of imprisonment by infidel American Judge. Kim Davis, on behalf of the Islamic State, ALLAHU AKBAR!”

Past winners of the ICA include Abu Yaqub al-Masri (killed in 2007) for throwing four gay men off a five story building and Haji Bakr (killed in 2014) for stoning a lesbian to death with only one small rock.

National Report's original article wasn't widely circulated, but an identical copy mirrored to the National Report's equally fake shill site usatoday.com.co led many social media users to mistake the piece for a genuine news item from the leigitmate news outlet USA Today.

All National Report articles are subject to the site's general disclaimer:

National Report is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways. All news articles contained within National Report are fiction, and presumably fake news. Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental.

Last updated:    16 September 2015

First published:    16 September 2015

Kim LaCapria is a former writer for Snopes.