The image circulated on Chinese social media — where tensions between Beijing and Washington have fuelled anti-US sentiment — after a cargo ship crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland on March 26, 2024.
The bridge, which was crossed by tens of thousands of motorists each day, collapsed within seconds and plunged into what officials said was roughly 50 feet (15 meters) of frigid water below.
The ship managed to issue a Mayday call warning that it had lost power, prompting authorities to scramble to shut down traffic to the bridge, potentially saving lives. But six of an eight-person construction crew are believed to have been killed in the collapse.
There was no immediate confirmation of the cause of the collapse, but Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley said there was no indication of terrorism.
The purported CNN broadcast image was also shared alongside similar false claims that a bridge was attacked elsewhere on Weibo, X, and the Chinese forum Guancha.
However, CNN said it never reported an “attack” on a bridge in the United States.
‘Fabricated image’
“[This] is a fabricated image and is not CNN’s banners, font or style, and is also not something we reported,” Emily Kuhn, CNN’s senior vice president of communications, told AFP in an email on March 28, 2024 (archived link).
Kuhn also pointed out to AFP that the image indicates Minneapolis in the upper left corner, when the image in fact shows the Baltimore bridge.
The screenshot does not correspond to CNN’s livestreamed report on the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the fabricated image used in the false post (left) and authentic CNN report on the accident (right):
Combined reverse image and keyword searches on Google and YouTube found the image was extracted from aerial footage of the collapsed Baltimore bridge published by local NBC affiliate broadcaster WBAL-TV on its YouTube channel (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the image used in the false Weibo post (left) and the WBAL-TV footage (right):
AFP has debunked misinformation surrounding the Baltimore bridge collapse here, here, here and here.