Did the Academy of Country Music (ACM) cancel Garth Brooks' Lifetime Achievement Award? No, that's not true: This article was written by a self-described satirical website that tries to troll people with their articles. No corporate statement or credible reporting supports the claim.
The claim appeared in an article published by The Dunning-Kruger Times on June 18, 2023, titled "Academy of Country Music Cancels Garth Brooks' Lifetime Achievement Award: 'They'd Boo Him Offstage'" (archived here). It opened:
It was just a few months ago that Garth Brooks joined Dolly Parton to host the 95th Annual Country Music Awards, the oldest celebration of its kind in the world.
The article looked like this at the time of writing:
(Source: The Dunning-Kruger-Times screenshot taken on Tue Jun 20 18:54:27 2023 UTC)
The article claims that Brooks called certain Americans "assholes" for not backing Bud Light beer, like he does. The article spoke to the supposed ACM President Joe Barron, who told The Dunning-Kruger-Times, "We're convinced that if we gave Brooks a lifetime achievement award ... his own peers would boo him offstage."
Joe Barron is not the name of the president of the ACM, but a friend of Christopher Blair, the founder of The Dunning-Kruger Times. His name is frequently used in Blair's satirical stories as an homage. The Academy's top position is not president, but chair, and his name is Chuck Aly.
ACM has not released a statement saying that Brooks will not be receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award. Evidence of that search is here.
A search for the phrase "Garth Brooks canceled Lifetime Achievement Award Academy of Country Music," using Google News' index of thousands of credible news sites, did not reveal any factual reports that Brooks would not receive the award because of his support of Bud Light.
The Dunning-Kruger Times
The Dunning-Kruger Times is a satirical website with an about page (archived here) that has following disclaimer:
About Us
Dunning-Kruger-Times.com is a subsidiary of the 'America's Last Line of Defense' network of parody, satire, and tomfoolery, or as Snopes called it before they lost their war on satire: Junk News
About Satire
Before you complain and decide satire is synonymous with 'comedy':
sat·ire ˈsaˌtī(ə)r noun: The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, OR ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this site's pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical. See above if you're still having an issue with that satire thing.
The website is named after the Dunning-Kruger effect, a term from a psychology experiment that describes the phenomenon of being ignorant of one's own ignorance. (That experiment has been disputed by a math professor.)
It is run by self-described liberal troll Christopher Blair.
More Lead Stories fact checks on The Dunning-Kruger Times claims are here.
