Fake News: Jussie Smollett NOT Offered Job At CNN

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: Jussie Smollett NOT Offered Job At CNN

Was actor Jussie Smollett offered a job at CNN after fabricating a news story out of thin air? No, that's not true: the story about the new job for the Empire actor was made up by a Christian-themed satire website after reports emerged Smollett was the victim of a hate crime which according to later reports appeared to have been staged by the actor himself.

The story originated from an article published by The Babylon Bee on February 18, 2019 titled "Jussie Smollett Offered Job At CNN After Fabricating News Story Out Of Thin Air" (archived here) which opened:

ATLANTA, GA--While Empire actor Jussie Smollett has been having a tough week so far, there appears to be a silver lining: cable news channel CNN has offered Smollett a job as an investigative reporter and on-air anchor after witnessing his skills at fabricating a story entirely out of thin air.

Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:

Jussie Smollett Offered Job At CNN After Fabricating News Story Out Of Thin Air

ATLANTA, GA--While Empire actor Jussie Smollett has been having a tough week so far, there appears to be a silver lining: cable news channel CNN has offered Smollett a job as an investigative reporter and on-air anchor after witnessing his skills at fabricating a story entirely out of thin air.CNN producers were reportedly impressed throughout t ...

In reality CNN has reported about the incident which was first described as a hate crime but which now seems to have been orchestrated to look like one:

Police sources: New evidence suggests Jussie Smollett orchestrated attack

Two law enforcement sources with knowledge of the investigation tell CNN that Chicago Police believe the actor Jussie Smollett paid two men to orchestrate an assault on him that he reported late last month.

"The Babylon Bee" comes with following dislaimer on every page:

The Babylon Bee is Your Trusted Source For Christian News Satire.

Several people on social media did not seem to grasp the story was just a joke:

Some of the greatest past hits of The Babylon Bee include:

With a track record like that it is clear that you shouldn't take anything posted on the site seriously and you definitely shouldn't confuse it with real news.

We wrote about babylonbee.com before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:

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  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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