Did Andy Reid, head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, publicly say that "If you kneel for the national anthem, you should lose your Olympic medal"? No, that's not true: An AI detection tool says it is highly likely that the article containing the statement was generated using artificial intelligence. Lead Stories didn't find any record of a press conference during which the NFL coach made that remark.
The claim appeared in an article (archived here) published on August 11, 2024, on a website called "US NEWS." The article opened:
Kansas City, MO -- In a recent statement that has sparked widespread debate, Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid has publicly criticized athletes who protest during the national anthem, suggesting that those who kneel should forfeit their Olympic medals. Reid's comments have ignited a national conversation about patriotism, protest, and the intersection of sports and politics.
This is what the article looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: US News screenshot taken on Tue Aug 13 15:28:29 2024 UTC)
Lead Stories performed several searches using keywords on Google, visible here, here and here. None of the searches generated credible documents or reporting to corroborate the claim.
The website seemingly uses artificial intelligence for its content. One clue is the article's lack of specificity, such as concrete dates and hyperlinks. Another was gleaned by using the Hive AI-Generated Text Detection tool. Lead Stories ran the first three paragraphs of the article though the tool. The results showed a 99.9 percent likelihood that the text contained AI-generated text, as shown in the screenshot below:
(Source: Hive Moderation screenshot taken on Tue Aug 13 15:30:44 2024 UTC)
Lead Stories contacted the Kansas City Chiefs for comment on the claim. We will update this story with any relevant response.
Other Lead Stories fact checks on claims related to Andy Reid can be found here.
