In December 2023, an excerpt from a live broadcast of an American television channel went viral on the Internet, where a photo of the US President was allegedly shown in a story about a person suspected of molesting a child. We decided to check if this really happened.
In the 12-second video clip that went viral, the anchor reads the news: “A 71-year-old man was accused of inappropriately touching a 12-year-old girl at the West Mifflin Walmart on Sunday afternoon.” At this moment, a photograph of American President Joe Biden appears on the screen behind her. Some Russian media reported on the embarrassment of journalists (Life, "Constantinople", "Morning south"etc.) and informational resources. Users of social networks also wrote that the TV channel “by mistake, and perhaps intentionally” exposed Biden as a pedophile (“VKontakte", X, Facebook). The news became especially popular on Telegram, where the video was published “Putin on Telegram"(134,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), Voblya (113,000), "Yakov Kedmi"(87,000), "Cartridge» (46,000) and other channels.
Judging by the logo on the video, the fragment was taken from the air of a regional American television channel WTAE-TV Pittsburgh. “Verified” could not find the required news release in the channel’s official accounts in YouTube and in social networks. However, WTAE-TV Pittsburgh does not post full live broadcasts online (only short reports, mostly from the scene), and the viral video clearly re-shot the episode from the TV screen. One could assume that the channel simply did not want to publish an episode with a blooper on air.
The incident that was covered in the news happened back on February 28, 2022 - then a 71-year-old man was actually accused of grabbing a 12-year-old girl by the buttocks in one of the Walmart stores in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania. The police detained the offender, and on the same day the media showed his photo. They talked about this news on website WTAE-TV Pittsburgh. There is no video fragment from the broadcast in the news, instead there is a 30-second video with voice-over text, possibly prepared specifically for the website and/or social networks (unlike the live broadcast, there is no clock or ticker on the block at the bottom of the video).
In the viral video, under a photo of Biden on the screen behind the news anchor, there is the inscription: “State of the Union tonight.” This is a preview of the planned broadcast of the American President's State of the Union Address, which he announced March 1, 2022 (probably it was on this day that the embarrassment occurred on air). That is, the channel’s employees, apparently, did not confuse the politician with the accused (otherwise the text under the photo would have been different), but mistakenly displayed the prepared announcement instead of the accompanying material for the news.
The earliest case of video publication that Verified was able to find is fast on social network X (then Twitter) by user @GuyFrees, posted on the evening of March 1, 2022. The video quickly spread across social networks with ironic captions, some media wrote about him (for example, Washington Examiner), and the TV channel Sky News Australia a few days later he even showed it on his show Outsiders. The presenter of the program, Rowan Dean, commented on the mistake of his colleagues: “This happens on air.”
According to the TGStat service, in December 2023, the Telegram channel was the first to remember the embarrassment of American journalists a year and a half ago.Crimea media" Despite the fact that the post received only 49 views (at the time of writing the analysis), it was there that the video was published the earliest - on December 12, 2023 at 9:16 Moscow time. Within a few hours, many other pro-Russian Telegram channels, including much larger ones, posted the video.
Thus, an embarrassment actually occurred on one of the regional American television channels - during a report about a man accused of molesting a teenage girl, an announcement of Biden’s future speech was shown on the screen in the studio behind the TV presenter. His photo was not confused with the image of a pedophile - the graphics announcing the president’s speech had nothing to do with the leading news being read. This happened back in March 2022, while many Russian-speaking Internet users publish the video as relevant.
Cover photo: video screenshot GuyFrees (X)
Read on the topic:
- The Voicemag. 8 cases of presenters being fired for mistakes, jokes and swearing on air: video
- Is the video of Joe Biden sniffing a baby true?
- Is it true that an American TV channel accidentally showed Zelensky’s speech instead of a funny video with a dog?
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