Does a photo on Facebook really show Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz in blackface? No, that's not true: This image came from the Facebook account for a satirical website that labels itself as all about fake content. The photo in the post is of actor John Slattery, not Walz.
The photo appeared in a post on Facebook on August 23, 2024. Above what looked like a white man in blackface, the caption said:
Here's Tim Walz dressing in blackface years ago to amuse his student body alumni. What a great guy.
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu Sept 5 15:25:26 2024 UTC)
The account that posted the image, American Liberty, identifies itself under the Intro heading as an entertainment website. It specifies that "Nothing on this page is real":
A subsidiary of the ALLOD network of trollery.
Nothing on this page is real.
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu Sept 5 15:35:26 2024 UTC)
The Intro section also links to the Patriot Party Press website. The site is part of the America's Last Line of Defense (ALLOD) network of satire websites run by self-professed liberal troll Christopher Blair. Articles from Blair's sites frequently get copied by "real" fake news sites that omit the satire disclaimer and other hints the stories are fake.
The Patriot Party Press site's About Us page (archived here) defines the word "satire" under About Satire, and provides the standard ALLOD disclaimer:
Everything on this website is fiction ... If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined.
Lead Stories searched using keywords on the Google News archive of thousands of reliable information sites, visible here (archived here), which found no credible documents or reporting to corroborate the claim.
A Google Lens reverse image search (archived here) of the image in the post revealed an August 31, 2009, Flickr post titled, "Mad Men - Roger in Blackface." The Flickr image's caption said the shot was from the TV show's "season 3, episode 3, My Old Kentucky Home."
A YouTube search using keywords from the Flickr caption led to this July 7, 2024, video, titled "Blackface on Mad Men." The video has a scene in which the character Roger Sterling, played by John Slattery, sings in blackface.
In an April 2, 2015, article in The Hollywood Reporter titled "'Mad Men': Blackface, Fat Suits, Severed Nipples and More Untold Stories From THR's Oral History," Slattery discussed that appearance in blackface and said that "I didn't really want to do it."
ALLOD
Christopher Blair mostly publishes made-up stories with headlines specifically created to trigger Republicans, conservatives and evangelical Christians into angrily sharing or commenting on the story on Facebook without actually reading the full article, exposing them to mockery and ridicule by fans of the sites and pages.
Every site in the network has an about page that reads (in part):
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.
Articles from Blair's sites frequently get copied by "real" fake news sites who omit the satire disclaimer and other hints the stories are fake. One of the most persistent networks of such sites is run by a man from Pakistan named Kashif Shahzad Khokhar (aka "DashiKashi") who has spammed hundreds of such stolen stories into conservative and right-wing Facebook pages in order to profit from the ad revenue.
When fact checkers point this out to the people liking and sharing these copycat stories some of them get mad at the fact checkers instead of directing their anger at the foreign spammers or the liberal satire writers. Others send a polite "thank you" note, which is much appreciated.
Other fact check outlets, including Snopes and USAToday, also have reviewed this claim.
Lead Stories contacted the office of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz for a statement regarding the validity of the claim on Facebook. If a response is received, this fact check will be updated.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks mentioning Tim Walz can be read here and the ALLOD network can be read here.
