Doctored CNN chyron resurfaces after Maine mass shooting
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on October 30, 2023 at 15:22
- 2 min read
- By Natalie WADE, AFP USA
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"Now that we know the shooter in Maine was an Obama supporter, do you think that will change how this story is covered by the Networks?" says an October 26, 2023 post sharing the supposed news segment on X, formerly known as Twitter.
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Screenshot of an X post taken October 26, 2023
The narrative spread on multiple platforms, including Facebook, amid the war between Israel and Hamas, which has sparked protests around the world.
Card was found dead October 27 after an exhaustive manhunt following the deadly mass shooting at two separate locations in Lewiston, Maine on October 25, 2023. At least 18 people were killed and another 13 wounded at a local bar and bowling alley.
Authorities remained uncertain about the motive in the killings but said the 40-year-old army reservist had suffered from mental health issues.
Although CNN has covered the tragedy, the chyron shared online is not authentic -- it is an altered version of a 2021 broadcast.
"The image and banner are fabricated and did not air on CNN," a network spokeswoman told AFP on October 27.
The Babylon Bee, a satirical website, originally published the manipulated photo in a March 23, 2021 article. But some of those sharing the image did not include any mention of satire
The picture was altered from a CNN segment (archived here) in which host Brooke Baldwin interviewed correspondent Lucy Kafanov after a March 22 mass shooting at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado.
There are other clues the image shared online is unrelated to the shooting in Maine.
The top right corner of the broadcast indicates Kafanov -- who had no reports from Maine -- was in Boulder, not Lewiston. And Baldwin left CNN in April 2021 (archived here).
The Defense Department previously told AFP that Card was a sergeant first class in the Army Reserve with "no combat deployments." Authorities have released photos of the suspect, but they had not commented on his race as of 2100 GMT on October 27.
AFP has debunked other posts about mass shootings here, here and here.
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