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More great saves by AP staffers

Every few weeks we distribute to the AP staff examples of great saves by our staffers who protected us from hoaxes and inaccuracies. Here are some of the latest:

A SUSPECT SNIPER

The video looked like it had been shot on the front lines of Syria’s civil war. It looked so real that the Islamic State group’s official website posted it as a de facto event, which drove up its popularity. The footage opens with a young boy on the ground, apparently shot by a sniper as he attempts to save a nearby girl. The boy gets up after the first apparent gunshot wound and the viewer can hear distinct Syrian voices in the background celebrating the boy’s survival. Then, as he gets up and runs toward the girl again, he is “shot” a second time, a cloud of smoke billowing from his midsection as he falls forward. As impossible as it sounds, he gets up again, takes the young girl by the hand and runs out of view of the camera as more shots are fired at his feet. Millions of YouTube viewers watched and shared the viral content. Some other news organizations picked up the video and treated it as authentic. The AP did not. When the video emerged, Jon Gambrell and Patrick Quinn in Cairo were skeptical. They noted the quality of the footage, the steady camera position, likely on a tripod, and the clear audio. There was a lack of blood and the miraculous nature of the boy’s repeated survival. They decided to avoid the video. After the video had made its rounds, the BBC reported that the dramatic footage was actually shot in Malta, using professional actors, cameras and audio gear. The producers even employed Syrian refugees as the convincing voices in the background. The group that produced the film said they wanted to bring attention to children in war zones and presented it as real because they thought it would get more attention that way.

CALM DOWN, EVERYONE: PELE IS FINE

Soccer great Pele’s health had been hospitalized for treatment of a urinary tract infection. Suddenly, the hospital released an alarming-sounding statement saying the 74-year-old Pele had suffered “clinical instability” and had to be transferred to a “special care unit.” Some news outlets quickly filed stories saying that Pele’s condition had worsened and hinted his life was in danger. AP’s sports writer in Brazil, Tales Azzoni, decided to be careful with the hospital’s badly worded statement, especially because it wasn’t clear enough to allow us to say that Pele’s condition had deteriorated significantly. Azzoni was able to contact one of Pele’s spokesmen and it turned out that the former player was doing just “fine.” After Pele was released from the hospital on Tuesday, doctors confirmed in a news conference that his life was never in danger as suggested by many reports. Pele was eventually transferred to an intensive care unit, but it wasn’t because of any serious complications. Pele had already used his Twitter account to calm fears over his health, and in the news conference he said the illness was “a scare” but he never feared for his life. One of Pele’s agents wrote Azzoni an email saying that she was glad we reported it correctly to “calm everyone down!”

NOT A QUEEN PLOT

With Islamic State militants regularly threatening Western interests, the headlines seemed plausible enough: a plot against Queen Elizabeth II had been foiled in London and the suspects were in custody. It is true that the queen is a terrorist target, in general, and that she prefers light rather than intense security. It was also true that there had been terror-related arrests just days before the Queen was to lead a national ceremony honoring British armed forces members who had died in action. But it wasn’t true that the two things were linked, as one British paper reported, and others quickly followed. The AP held off and instead started to make calls. London’s acting chief of bureau, Greg Katz, contacted British intelligence sources at MI5, who told him that the reports were not true. The arrests, which we reported, may or may not lead to charges, and may or may not have been related to a plot on UK soil.

BEARLY REALISTIC

Caleb Jones at AP’s New York Nerve Center spotted video that had been posted to Facebook by an outdoors group in New York state. In the video, a mountain biker wearing a GoPro camera sees a bear charging toward him. The man speeds off, looking over his shoulder periodically as the bear continues to chase behind him. Finally, he comes to some brush on the trail, hops off his bike and watches as the large bear appears to be spooked away by what sounds like gun shots. The video was dramatic, though Caleb was quick to determine that the video shows a brown bear, not native to New York, and expressed skepticism in his initial email. East Assistant Regional Editor Jeff McMillan concurred that it seemed fishy and suggested that someone on the video team check into it. Video Content Manager Walter Ratliffe spotted other videos on YouTube that appeared to possibly contain source video from which a fake edit might have been made. Social Media Editor Eric Carvin noted that lighting on the image of the bear did not appear to match its surroundings and there were other video artifacts present suggesting an edit. User-generated content specialist Hannah Cushman noted that it seemed highly unlikely that someone would get off his bike in this situation. And finally Walter again checked out the group’s YouTube page and found a more obviously faked video of a puppy ice bucket challenge. The video has gone viral, but AP was quick to determine it is not real.

We salute these staffers for protecting AP’s excellent record for accuracy.

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