A Japanese news reporter was caught drastically exaggerating how much snow had fallen after a local captured a photo that revealed the truth behind his report.

Earlier this month, the reporter claimed that there was “waist-deep snow” in the town of Sukayu.

“As you can see, so much snow has piled up that it’s as high as my waist,” the reporter said.

However, a resident watching the report posted her own photo exposing that the reporter was greatly overstating the situation! She posted her photo to Twitter, where it quickly went viral.

酸ヶ湯に公共放送の取材クルー来てて、雪に埋まって何してんのやと思って見てたけど、夕方のニュース見たら
「ご覧ください、私の腰の高さまで雪が積もってます( ｰ`дｰ´)ｷﾘｯ」だってwww pic.twitter.com/uzhKNRzguF

— ナミー (@koichinamini) December 9, 2018

“‘What the heck are they doing?’ I wondered,” she posted alongside the photo.

Sukayu is a hot spring community in Aomori City in northern Japan that had experienced heavy snowfall at the time. However, the waist-deep snow could only be found much further out of town.

While many have found the photos humorous, others have said that it shows the dishonesty of the media in many parts of the world. These days, it often seems like the media sensationalizes a story to garner ratings rather than tell the truth about what is going on.

It would be nice to live in a time when we could once again trust the media to just report the facts!