In October 2025, a video went viral on the RuNet: a journalist allegedly ran out of frame after a rodent ran across her table in a television studio during a live broadcast. We have verified the authenticity of the viral video.
The video began circulating in mid-October. “A rat almost disrupted Al Jazeera news. The incident occurred during a live broadcast from the headquarters of a Qatari television channel in London. The presenter read the text from the teleprompter. At some point, a rat ran across the table, which scared the woman. She squealed and jumped out of her chair, interrupting the newscast for a few seconds. Quickly coming to her senses, the presenter apologized for the incident and continued broadcasting,” described what was happening “Radio Sputnik" Edition News.ru added: “Someone suggested that perhaps the footage was generated using artificial intelligence. However, the rodent was reported to be real.” Newspaper "Moskovsky Komsomolets" clarified that the presenter's name is supposedly Shyuli Ghosh, and "Ukraine.ru" - that the incident occurred on October 11 (although the video went viral on the Internet the day before). Materials on this topic were also released "Gazeta.ru", "Komsomolskaya Pravda", "Arguments and facts", "Regnum", Life.ru, "Public news service", "Main regional", "Notepad Russia", as well as TV channels "World 24", 360, "Moscow 24" And "Star"
According to the TGStat service, at the time of writing this analysis, at least 600 similar posts appeared on Telegram, which in total received more than 3.8 million views. Channels spoke about the viral videoDmitry Nicotin"(291,000 views), "KB plus"(221,000), "The goat screamed"(214,000), "Newsach / Dvach"(208,000), "Catch the trend!"(196,000), "Uncle Slava" (161,000), "Bocharik (yep, that same one)"(87,000), "Dmitry Vasilets"(78,000, post deleted), "Tough of the day"(71,000), Swiss vatnik (64,000), etc. The alleged recording of the Al Jazeera broadcast is found in “VKontakte", X, "Odnoklassniki", Instagram* (examples here And here), TikTok, "Zene" (here And here), as well as on "Peekaboo", YouTube And Rutube. In addition, Russian-language media from Belarus (TV channelFirst information", "ONT"), Ukraine (UNIAN, Comments.ua), Kazakhstan (Zakon.kz) and Azerbaijan (1news.az, Oxu.az, Media.az). The video was widely distributed outside the RuNet.
All of the media outlets and bloggers listed above featured the same 10-second video with the Al Jazeera channel logo. In it, during the broadcast, a rat runs across the table at which the presenter is sitting, after which the woman runs away from her seat screaming, and then returns to work with an apology. Jumping up, the TV channel employee also touched the chair, causing it to roll away and turn its back to the table. However, this did not bother the presenter, who sat down (or pretended to sit down) on the empty space and moved the chair without touching it with her hands.
Such unnatural behavior is one of the signs that the video was generated by a neural network. Other oddities can be seen in the viral video. For example, in the leader’s left hand, something resembling a blue fountain pen appears and then disappears. And the Al Jazeera logo is in the wrong place and is slightly different from what used on the TV channel.
Authors of some of the posts mentioned above proved the authenticity of the video with reference to explanations from the chatbot Grok, developed by xAI and integrated into the social network X. During the preparation of this analysis, “Verified” also asked Grok if this was a real recording, and received the answer is: “No, this video is AI generated and is not real. Fact checks from Rumor Scanner, Latestly and other sources confirm the fake: there is no official confirmation from Al Jazeera, there are noticeable inconsistencies in the footage.” Similar chatbot responses gave some X users still have October 10th.
Most publications also claim that the incident occurred during a broadcast from Al Jazeera studios in London. Al Jazeera English channel was launched in 2006 and initially broadcast from the UK, Qatar, USA and Malaysia. However, back in 2023 the channel completed creation one-stop live streaming center in Doha. At the same time, they stopped broadcasting from a studio in the British capital.
News editor Al Jazeera Saad Abedin's in your post X called the video a cheap AI fake. According to him, the channel has never had such chairs, such a studio and such a presenter. He added:
“But we've always had kittens born under the table, in addition to the dozens of kittens born outside the news studio that may be walking around there. I've been working here for 11 years and I can confirm that we have never seen a rat. We already have enough cats. Trust me. I know. I'm hypersensitive to them."
Abedin also cited links on a couple videos posted 17 years ago on the YouTube channel TheAlJazeeraCat. They show cats running around the channel's studio.
Note that some resources that distributed the video tried to correct the error. For example, Telegram channel Nexta Live (190,000 views) 20 minutes after publishing your post clarified: “The video was probably AI generated.” And the Kazakhstan portal Mail.kz just deleted note from your website.
Thus, there is no evidence that the rat interrupted Al Jazeera's broadcast. The media and bloggers who reported on this relied on a video generated by a neural network, which was published under the guise of the real thing.
*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Instagram, is an extremist organization; its activities and symbols are prohibited in Russia.
Cover photo: social networks
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