Edited Video Viral as CNN Showing ‘Fake Attacks’ Amid Israel-Hamas War

CNN's report from the Israel-Gaza border was edited to include a voice-over.

A video showing American news organisation CNN's team running and taking cover near the Israel-Gaza border amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war has gone viral on social media.

• The video includes audio commentary by an off-camera person, who sounds like they are issuing directions to the team on how to act in front of the camera.

What are users claiming?: This video is being shared on social media, where users are accusing CNN of "faking" dangerous situations and furthering propaganda.

(Archives of more posts with the same claim can be seen here and here.)

Is it true?: No, the video is edited. The audio of a person issuing directions to the team was added by an organisation called 'The Quartering', who said that the audio was "not real."

How did we find out?: We looked for the original footage of the team, led by CNN's international correspondent Clarissa Ward.

We came across the organisation's coverage on their verified YouTube channel, where it was first published on 9 October, two days after Hamas attacked Israel.

Here, we noticed that there was no voice-over issuing directions to the reporter and her team.

• In the viral claim, we saw the words 'The Quartering' on the top-left corner of the frame.

Taking a cue from this, we looked for social media accounts with the same name.

• The search led us to an account on X (formerly Twitter), which had shared a video of CNN's report on 11 October in its post.

• Replying to its post, The Quartering, which calls itself a 'news and content website', mentioned that "of course the voice-over isn't real."

A few people missed the fact that this is an into from the longer coverage lol. Yes of course the voice over isn't real but the fake acting IS real. :)

— TheQuartering (@TheQuartering) October 10, 2023

We also came across another user, '@stevenvoiceover' on X, who shared the video.

• They replied to a user comment, stating that they threw in a line referring to the 1999 film The Blair Witch Project "to make it obvious it was a meme."

Commenting on the viral video, a CNN spokesperson told New York Post that the audio used in the viral video was "fabricated, inaccurate and irresponsibly distorts the reality of the moment that was covered live."

Conclusion: An edited video is being shared to claim that CNN faked attacks while reporting from the Israel-Gaza border.

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