In early December 2024, news channel CNN broadcast an interview with Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the leader of the Syrian rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
Al-Golani's forces were among several organizations to storm Aleppo and the capital, Damascus, in late November and early December, causing former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to flee to Moscow.
On Dec. 6, soon after CNN broadcast the interview, an alleged screenshot (archived) from the recording, began circulating online in which a chyron display reading "Abu Mohammad al-Jolani (He/Him)" was visible.
(X user @caitoz)
Writer Caitlin Johnstone's above post, which appeared to be the original, had been viewed more than 6 million times as of this writing.
The claim recirculated on Dec. 10, with another post (archived) getting more than 50,000 views.
However, the image the claim was based upon had been edited after the fact to insert the pronouns. The color, alignment and font of the words "(He/Him)" were all visibly different from the text preceding them. In fact, the original interview shows that the pronouns were never included. Therefore, we have rated this claim as false.
CNN's interview with al-Golani was published on Dec. 6. It also appeared on the network's YouTube channel and CNN Arabic.
While these used different on-screen graphics, an exact match without pronouns was found on CNN's English-language site.
(X user @caitoz and CNN)
As seen above, the added pronouns did not appear in the version of the interview from CNN's website. The added pronouns on the image from Johnstone's X account are also visibly a different color, font and alignment from the rest of the chyron text.
The pronouns also did not appear in the aforementioned YouTube footage, nor in the CNN Arabic video.
Lauren Cone, senior director at CNN Communications, said via email on Dec. 11 that the image in Johnstone's X post was "fabricated."
Snopes has also contacted Johnstone for comment. We will update this article if we receive a response.