I Scream, You Scream, Reuters Screams…

I am a day late with this, but it is still worth a chuckle. Someone posted a short video clip of Joe Biden walking away from his wife while she is speaking at a podium, and added ice cream truck music as though Biden is being lured away by the prospect of ice cream. This is what is commonly known as a joke:


Note that Twitter flagged the video as “manipulated media.”

But Reuters was taking no chances. It put its fact-checking operation to work.

Social media users are sharing a video of U.S. President Joe Biden walking away momentarily during a speech given by U.S. First Lady Jill Biden and claiming that he was distracted by an ice cream truck. The video being shared, however, has been digitally edited to include music usually played by an ice cream truck.
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Some posts also included photos with an ice cream truck in the background (here).

The original video was posted on C-SPAN (here) on Sept. 10, 2021…. At around the 01:35 mark, Biden can be seen walking out of frame and returning a few seconds later, but no ice cream truck can be seen in the video nor can any music be heard.

VERDICT

Altered. This video has been digitally edited to include ice cream truck music as U.S. President Joe Biden walked away momentarily during first lady Jill Biden’s speech.

Thanks for clearing that up, Reuters. What strikes me about this episode is that Reuters evidently believes that Joe Biden’s mental decline is so severe that people really will think that he wanders away in a fog when he hears an ice cream truck. In that respect, the “fact check” is unintentionally revealing.

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