Is it true that CNN on his tweeters issued a hotel in Serbia for the destroyed Ukrainian hotel?

In March 2022, Russian media and Internet users suspected a large American television channel for the spread of fake news. We checked the validity of such accusations.

March 22, 2022 on the broadcast of the TV channel "Russia 24" Showed The plot about the “unique fake content” of the American television channel CNN: “The personnel of the Mir Hotel, broken by Russian shells, are on the frames. As it turned out, this is one of the buildings of the Serbian resort, the bell-bang. This is evidenced by the drawing on the wall. And the structure is actually on reconstruction, so in this state. ” After a day earlier, their overseas colleagues accused In disinformation and the Fifth Canal, criticizing the tweet allegedly placed in the CNN account.

On the same days, CNN was also criticized by social networks. The screenshot of Twita, allegedly published by the TV channel, placed rather large publics on VKontakte, including "Distilled in war" (about 180,000 subscribers at the time of writing this material), "Serbia | Voice of Serbia | Life in Serbia " (almost 120,000) and Official page publicist Nikolai Starikov (about 230,000). Similar posts were placed by users of other social networks, for example Twitter.

The statement that the hotel depicted in the photo is not in Ukraine, but in Serbia, is true. This hotel is really located in the city of Knight-Ban, and the image used in the screenshot was made no later than 2010-then the picture Placed In the publication about how the hotel came into desolation. The Serbian hotel "Mir" is dedicated to the video, published On YouTube in the summer of 2020.

Now let's figure out whether CNN really published this tweet.

When searching on Twitter to us failed Find the publications posted by the account @cnnbrk and containing hashtag #standingwithukraine. They did not write In this account and about the Ukrainian Hotel "Mir". " It could be assumed that such a tweet was really published, but then it was deleted, but in this case the record would be preserved in the Google cache (we also Not found No traces). German factor from the Correctiv project Not found Similar tweets in other CNN accounts. There is no news about the destroyed Ukrainian hotel on the website of the TV channel.

It is also indicative of the design of the tweet presented in the screenshot. Firstly, the text made spelling errors that are extremely uncharacteristic of such a large edition (at least the word UKRainian and Russian in English are written with a capital letter). Secondly, entries on the @cnnbrk Twitter account are traditionally consisted of short text without emoji and hashtags, as well as investments-pictures and signatures that form a link to the material on the CNN website. Thirdly, in the original design of the social network, such pictures have rounded corners, while the screenshot shows an image with straight angles and without a signature. Classic tweet CNN Breaking News looks like this:

Our colleagues of the factory from different countries turned for comments on the TV channel. The head of the communications department CNN Bridget Lininger, as well as other representatives of this media in their answers for Politifact, USA Today, AFP, Reuters, Checkyourfact And other publications said that Twit was fabricated and CNN had never published a similar entry in his social networks.

In the screenshot of the supposedly CNN tweet in the upper right corner, it is no coincidence that a certains named Mike Maikonski is mentioned. Like in early March found out The Serbian edition Raskrikavanje, under this pseudonym, is hiding a local resident Milorad Ukvovich. In his homeland, he became famous for the publication of invented or satirical news, which he laid out on his Instagram* along with mounted pictures. Raskrikavanje gives a screenshot of one of these records in which the same “Twit CNN” is used (now the @majk_majkonski profile is not available).

Although the screenshot with the mounted tweet CNN was most popular, a video of the supposedly destroyed Ukrainian hotel was also shown on the air of Russia-24. The personnel accompanied the Dictor's commentary: “Foreign publications, in particular CNN, continue to post a unique fake content.” In fact, the video was taken from the anonymous Telegram channel "Balkan Gossiper" (about 26,500 subscribers at the time of writing this text). March 21 in it appeared A record that exposes the “error” on the CNN Twitter (the author disassembled the same screenshot marked “Mike Maikonski”). On the site and in CNN social networks, we were not able to find a similar video where the Serbian hotel would be given as a Ukrainian one.

*Russian authorities They think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Instagram, an extremist organization, its activities in Russia are prohibited.

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Reuters. FACT Check-AMage of A Serbian Hotel Wrongly Captioned As Being In UKRaine Was Not Tweeted by CNN
2. Politifact. Viral Image: CNN Tweeted a Picture of a Serbian Resort and Said It Was in Ukraine
3. Raskrivanje. Lažne Vesti o lažnim Vestima: Fabrikovanje Nepostojećih Cnn Naloga
4. Correctiv. CNN-Tweet über Ein Zerstörtes Hotel in Der Ukraine Ist Gefälschat
5. USA Today. FACT Check: Fabricated Tweet Ussed to Wrongly Accuse CNN of MISREPORTING IN UKRANENE WAR
6. AFP Fact Check. FAKE CNN Tweet Shared in Posts Accusing Broadcaster of Fabricating 'Ukraine Bomb' Story