Skip to main content

PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Culture & entertainment fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about culture & entertainment. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

3,169 published reviews in this topic

FACT CRESCENDOCulture & entertainment

શહિદ ભગતસિંઘના બહેનનું 2 જૂન 2020ના 96 વર્ષની ઉંમરે મૃત્યુ થયુ.

Publisher’s rating: PARTLY FALSE

The claim concerned a Facebook post saying that Bhagat Singh’s sister had died on 2 June 2020, aged 96. The review says it began checking the post’s accuracy and searched Google using different keywords. It reports finding earlier coverage from The Hindu and India Today, both dated 29 September 2014, stating that Bhagat Singh’s sister had died in Canada. The review also points to a report by Punjabi YouTube channel Day and Night News from that date. The decisive point in the review is its identification of the sister as Prakash Kaur and its conclusion that she died in 2014, not in 2020. It therefore describes the 2020 claim as false and the post as recycling old news. The excerpt does not provide the underlying articles’ full text or further details about the death, so those are not established here.

NewtralCulture & entertainment

La revista Time vuelve a publicar la misma foto de una portada de 2015 por las protestas en Minneapolis

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The image circulating online presents a TIME cover as if the magazine had reused its 2015 cover for the 2020 Minneapolis protests. The review says the 2015 cover was genuine, but the version adding “2020” in red was edited: it describes that detail as not real. The cover’s original headline was “America,” and it showed a black-and-white photograph of a young Black man fleeing police, with “1968” and “2015” crossed out. [S1]

NewtralCulture & entertainment

La estatua de Federico García Lorca en Granada con una esvástica en la frente por las manifestaciones contra el Gobierno

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The claim says that anti-government demonstrators left a swastika on the forehead of the Federico García Lorca statue in Granada. The review identifies the monument as being on Avenida de la Constitución and says the image was circulating in posts that blamed demonstrators who had gathered in Granada the previous Saturday, as well as in other cities, calling for Pedro Sánchez’s resignation. The review reports that the Government Delegation in Granada counted close to 1,000 cars and 150 motorcycles at the gathering. Those details establish which image and event the investigation addresses. (S1) The review’s central check was to search for the image online. It says that this led to reports from early May 2018 about the same photograph, showing that it was not current and therefore did not depict damage caused during the gathering discussed in the posts. The review names elDiario, ABC and Ideal as outlets that had reported on the earlier incident. It thus distinguishes the older photograph from the later demonstration rather than disputing that the photograph shows a marked statue. (S1) The review also reports contacting Granada’s Local Police. According to the police, participants in the Saturday demonstration behaved civilly, and the police had no notification of damage to the Lorca statue or other street furniture. Taken together, the image’s earlier reporting and the police account undermine the claim that the demonstration caused the depicted damage. The review does not identify who marked the statue in 2018. (S1)

Fact CrescendoCulture & entertainment

Claim: Aamir Khan not distributed Rs 15000 in wheat bags

Publisher’s rating: False

The review investigates a social-media story alleging that Aamir Khan arranged a nighttime distribution of one-kilogram wheat-flour packets in a poor area of Delhi on April 23, 2020, with Rs 15,000 hidden in each packet. It says the post was shared by Ajijur Rahman on April 26. The review’s conclusion is that the attribution to Khan was false; it distinguishes the viral claim from an earlier, separately circulating rumor about flour packets containing money. To check the attribution, the reviewers say they looked for news reports that Khan had given money in Delhi and checked his Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages. They report finding no such announcement on his accounts and no news of him distributing the money in Delhi. The review also describes an earlier flour-and-money rumor associated with Surat, Gujarat: its Malayalam-language team reported asking Surat police, who said they had no information that such an incident had occurred there and that nobody had reported receiving Rs 15,000 in a flour packet. That episode is presented as a precursor to the later attribution to Khan, not as confirmation that the Delhi story happened. The decisive evidence quoted by the review is Khan’s own Twitter denial, dated May 4, 2020: he said he was not the person who put money in the flour packets and called the story possibly fake or the work of an anonymous “Robin Hood.” The review combines that denial with its reported lack of supporting news or social-media posts to reject the claim that Khan distributed the packets.

Deutsche Presse-AgenturCulture & entertainment

Ein angebliches Zitat von George Orwell als Kommentar zur Gegenwart - so verbreitet es eine Facebook-Seite. "Ich habe 1984 als Warnung geschrieben ... nicht als Betriebsanleitung", soll der britische Schriftsteller (1903-1950) über seinen Zukunftsroman gesagt haben

Publisher’s rating: Orwell starb wenige Monate nach der Veröffentlichung von "1984". Es findet sich kein Beleg dafür, dass er den Satz über den Roman gesagt hat. In anderen Facebook-Postings ist vermerkt, dass ihm das Zitat in den Mund gelegt worden sei.

The claim concerns a Facebook post circulating in May 2020 that attributed to George Orwell the words, “I wrote 1984 as a warning … not as an instruction manual.” The investigation identifies the post and compares the attribution with Orwell’s chronology and surviving writings. It reports that *1984* was published in June 1949, that Orwell had completed it the previous year, and that he died in January 1950, about six months after publication. He had been ill with tuberculosis for three years. The review cites Jeremy Wikeley of the Orwell Foundation, who said the statement did not make sense given Orwell’s death soon after publication, while acknowledging that he could not prove Orwell had never written it. (S1) The review also describes checks of Orwell’s digital archive at University College London and the English-language collected works covering 1947–1950. It reports finding no entry under English variants of “warning” or “manual” in the archive and no trace of the quote in those collected volumes. These searches support the conclusion that the attribution lacks documentary support; the source does not present them as proof that Orwell could never have said or written the words. (S1) The review traces a possible path for the wording without establishing Orwell as its author. It notes that a 2002 commentary interpreted *1984* as a warning about totalitarianism rather than an instruction manual, and that a 2004 book imagined what Orwell might say if he could speak from beyond the grave. The review says these examples did not directly attribute the wording to Orwell. It also notes that a version of the image posted in 2016 carried a small disclaimer saying the words had been “put in his mouth.” (S1)

NewtralCulture & entertainment

Helena Resano pide disculpas ''por ese negro'' tras emitirse un fragmento de entrevista con el presidente de SOS Racismo

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The claim concerns a purported laSexta Noticias clip in which Helena Resano allegedly apologizes for “that black person” after an interview with Moha Gerehou, then president of SOS Racismo. Newtral says the clip circulating online was manipulated, rather than a genuine broadcast in which that interview was accidentally inserted. (“Nos habéis preguntado por este supuesto vídeo de laSexta Noticias en el que se ve una entrevista a Moha Gerehou, presidente de SOS Racismo”; “Varias cuentas de Twitter lo han compartido pero es un FAKE, se trata de un vídeo manipulado.”) Newtral identifies the footage of Resano as coming from the 9 December 2015 newscast. It explains that her reference to the screen having “gone black” concerned the preceding video freezing on a black screen, and notes that a screen in the background showed “Caso Gürtel.” The interview with Gerehou aired in 2018, three years later, so it could not have been the fragment that supposedly interrupted the 2015 item. Newtral adds that Cristina Villanueva, not Resano, introduced the original interview segment. (“El informativo de Helena Resano es del 9 diciembre de 2015 y se ve en el fondo una pantalla donde se puede leer Caso Gürtel.”; “Cuando Resano se refiere a que ‘la pantalla se ha ido a negro’ quiere decir que el vídeo anterior se ha quedado bloqueado con un fondo negro”; “La entrevista a Moha Gerehu se emitió tres años después (2018)”; “En el vídeo original la periodista que da paso al vídeo es Cristina Villanueva.”)

USA TodayCulture & entertainment

Woodstock took place in the middle of a pandemic

Publisher’s rating: True

The claim concerns the 1969 Woodstock festival and whether it occurred during the 1968 flu pandemic. The review says Woodstock took place on a New York dairy farm in August 1969, and describes the pandemic as lasting into 1969–70. It also reports that a New York Times article from August 1969 noted doctors at the festival were preparing for the possible spread of a virus, cold or pneumonia among the large crowd. Together, those details support the claim that the festival and pandemic overlapped in time. (S1: “The post references stories from those who were present at the famous music event that took place on a dairy farm in New York in August 1969”; “The Centers for Disease Control estimates that 1 million people globally died from the 1968 flu pandemic — which lasted into 1969-70”; “A New York Times article from August 1969 reported that dozens of doctors were present at Woodstock to address ‘the potential threat of a virus cold or pneumonia epidemic among such a large gathering.’”) The review also assesses the accompanying comparison about public-health restrictions, not just the festival’s timing. It reports that governments did not impose stay-at-home orders during the 1968 pandemic, while noting that social distancing was not then an accepted public-health practice and that the outbreak was less deadly than some other pandemics and the contemporary COVID-19 outbreak. Thus, the evidence supports the narrow point that Woodstock occurred during the pandemic, while the review supplies qualifications to broader comparisons with the later pandemic. (S1: “The Woodstock festival of 1969 did occur amid a global pandemic and no stay at home orders were enforced.”; “Social distancing was also not an idea among public health officials at the time.”; “both pandemics were far below levels seen during the 1918 flu pandemic or the current SARS-CoV-2 outbreak.”)