A Viral Post Said Reporter Richard Engel Was Hurt Overseas. He Wasn’t.
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Real injuries
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Made the story
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Mar 10
Engel denied it
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Fooled Index
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AI-GENERATED — The “hospital” photo is fake. Engel was up and reporting the whole time.
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In mid-March, a story went around Facebook saying NBC News reporter Richard Engel had been hurt while covering the war in Israel. Some versions came with a picture that looked like him lying in a hospital bed. The posts didn’t come from NBC or any real news outlet. They came from blog pages that crank out shocking or touching stories about famous people to pull clicks.
Engel put the rumor to rest himself. On a March 10 episode of his podcast he said the talk about his injuries was “totally not true,” and two days later he posted a video from Israel, up and walking and clearly fine. NBC never reported any injury, because there wasn’t one.
The pages behind it use AI to write the stories and, in cases like this, to make the images. The hospital photo had no obvious goofs, which is part of why it fooled people. Engel said these fakes worried him. As he put it, whoever makes them wants people to think he’s dead, or wants to sow doubt, or just wants to confuse everyone.
This is a whole genre now. The same kind of pages have run fake stories that other public figures were dying, sick or in trouble, swapping the famous name to keep the clicks coming. When the story is sad or scary and it comes from a page you don’t know, that’s the moment to slow down.
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NBC never reported it. If a network reporter were hurt in a war zone, NBC would cover it first. NBC said nothing, because Engel wasn’t hurt.
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He said so himself. On his own podcast, Engel called the injury talk completely untrue, and he posted a video from Israel showing he was fine.
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The page wasn’t a news outlet. The posts came from blog pages that pump out shocking celebrity stories for clicks, not from any real newsroom.
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AI built the story and the photo. These pages use AI to write the words and make the images. The fake hospital photo looked clean, which is exactly why it fooled people.
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🚨 He’s Fine
Richard Engel wasn’t hurt in Israel. A content farm used AI to write a fake injury story and make a hospital photo, then spread it for clicks. Engel debunked it himself and posted a video showing he was fine. NBC never reported any injury, because there was nothing to report.
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Dr. Oz and Oprah Aren’t Backing a “Pink Gelatin” Weight-Loss Trick. |
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Ads and videos have been pushing a “pink gelatin” weight-loss trick, with famous faces like Dr. Oz, Oprah and Kelly Clarkson seeming to endorse it. None of them did. Snopes traced it to a scam that borrows a trusted face, drags you through a long video that won’t name the product, then funnels you toward a supplement sold under names like Gelatide. Some of the celebrity “endorsements” were AI deepfakes. The FDA warns that weight-loss products pushed this way are often fraudulent, so check a celebrity’s real accounts before you spend a dime.
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That “Goodbye Meta AI” Post You’re Told to Copy and Paste Does Nothing. |
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Every so often a message goes around Facebook and Instagram telling you to copy and paste a legal-sounding notice saying Meta can’t use your photos or posts. People paste it by the hundreds of thousands, celebrities included. It does nothing. A post on your page is not a contract, and Meta has said plainly that sharing it doesn’t count as opting out of anything. If a message tells you its power comes from copying and pasting it, that’s the tell that it’s empty.
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YOUR REALITY DETECTOR TOOLKIT |
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Today’s Skill: Slow Down on Scary Star News
The fakes that get you are the ones that hit your heart before your head.
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Check the page, not just the post
Engel’s “injury” came from a no-name blog page, not from NBC. If the source isn’t a real news outlet, doubt the story.
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See if the person said anything
Engel knocked the rumor down on his own podcast and posted a video. Real people answer big rumors on their own real accounts.
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Notice the feeling first
These posts are built to scare or sadden you fast, so you share before you check. If a post rushes your heart, slow your hand.
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