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Ciara O'Rourke
By Ciara O'Rourke August 31, 2023

Altered video changed CBS chyron from segment featuring Oprah Winfrey in Maui

If Your Time is short

  • This video was altered. CBS didn’t report this. 
 

Media magnate Oprah Winfrey has become a bogeyman of the recent Maui wildfires, as unfounded claims spread online connecting her to the blazes. 

Among them: that she started the fires and that she painted property she owns on the island blue to protect it from weapons that were used to start the fire. 

Those claims are not true, and neither is a newer one alleging that a CBS News report shows her responding to outrage that she supposedly stole land amid the fires. 

"Oprah Reacts To Getting CANCELLED For STEALING Land Amid Maui Fires," reads the caption of an Aug. 22 Facebook post, which spells canceled the British way. 

The post includes a video of what looks like a CBS Mornings report from Hawaii following the fires. The chyron at the bottom of the video says: "Oprah Reacts To Getting CANCELLED For STEALING Land Amid Maui Fires."

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This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

The footage in the Facebook video is authentic and taken from "CBS Mornings" original Aug. 14 broadcast that showed Winfrey and the show’s co-host, Tony Dokoupil, speaking with wildfire survivors. The video in the Facebook post doesn’t show the full broadcast and instead uses segments from the clip. 

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The chyron is fake.

The original chyron said "stories of survival" and "Oprah meets with evacuees, provides comfort in wake of wildfires." 

We rate this post False.

 

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Altered video changed CBS chyron from segment featuring Oprah Winfrey in Maui

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