By P.J. Gladnick
How do you make a funny meme even funnier than it originally was? By fact checking it by a major news organization. For some reason, on July 31, the “Reuters Fact Check” unit pounced on a YouTube video from September 12, 2021.
In real life, President Biden mysteriously walked away from his wife’s speech for a few seconds. In the video, they added an ice cream truck driving by to “explain” Biden’s walking away. Maybe Reuters was newly alarmed because it has 384,000 views. Because it’s funny.
What brought it back to an even funnier encore was a fact check by Reuters on Sunday telling us that, no, Joe Biden really didn’t follow an ice cream truck in the middle of his wife’s remarks.
It began with its title that urgently informed readers that “Fact Check-Video does not show Biden being distracted by music from an ice cream truck.”
Social media users are sharing a video of U.S. President Joe Biden walking away momentarily during a speech given by U.S. First Lady Jill Biden and claiming that he was distracted by an ice cream truck. The video being shared, however, has been digitally edited to include music usually played by an ice cream truck.
…The original video was posted on C-SPAN (here) on Sept. 10, 2021 with the caption: “President Biden–and first ladyJill Biden–spoke at Washington, D.C.’s Brookland Middle School about the coronavirus pandemic and keeping children safe. The president urged parents to get their children vaccinated if they were eligible.”
At around the 01:35 mark, Biden can be seen walking out of frame and returning a few seconds later, but no ice cream truck can be seen in the video nor can any music be heard.
VERDICT
Altered. This video has been digitally edited to include ice cream truck music as U.S. President Joe Biden walked away momentarily during first lady Jill Biden’s speech.
Wow! We never would have figured out that the original video was altered to include an ice cream truck image and music had it not been for that ground-breaking Reuters fact check. Of course, that Reuters made the original meme even more popular due to the widespread mockery of its laughable “fact check.” They accidently upped the humor quotient.
Editor’s note. This appeared at Newsbusters and is reposted with permission.