Social media users shared posts online showing a snapshot of a CNN broadcast story with a headline about the Colorado shooting suspect. This image has been digitally altered to include a fake caption.
Examples can be seen here and here.
The screenshot shows CNN journalists Brooke Baldwin and Lucy Kafanov in a split screen. The headline read: “Investigation: Shooter was virtually Arab, but morally white.”
A gunman opened fire on a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado, on March 22, 2021, killing 10 people, including the first police officer to arrive at the scene, before the bloodied suspect was shot dead in a week in the second deadly mass shooting. was arrested (here).
A 21-year-old suspect, Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa of the suburb of Arvada in Denver, is charged with ten counts of murder and one attempted murder (here).
A Google search for the headline revealed that an article with the same headline appeared here on the satirical website The Babylon Bee. The article was also shared by the same website on Twitter, here .
The original video from which the screenshot was taken was posted here on CNN by YouTube. It shows the same scene with another headline that reads: “Colorado shooting suspect was booked in jail today.”
Matt Dornic, head of strategic communications for CNN, confirmed to Reuters in an email that the headline had been made. “This is another false and offensive image that is spreading on social media platforms,” Dornic added. “CNN never broadcast the banner.”
VERDICT
Alter. The screenshot showing a CNN broadcast with the headline about the suspect’s race in Colorado’s mass shooting has been digitally altered.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.