Facts Matter: Rock didn't apologize for joke

Shortly after some 15 million viewers watching the Academy Awards last week saw actor Will Smith slap comedian Chris Rock, fact checkers were busy debunking false claims about the incident.

While presenting an award, Rock told a joke about Smith's wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith. After initially laughing, Will Smith walked over to Rock, smacked him, returned to his seat and screamed at the man he had just slapped.

The next day, an apology for telling the joke, supposedly written by Rock, began circulating on social media.

“Last night I crossed a line that I shouldn't have and paid the enormous price of my reputation as a renown comedian,” read part of the statement, which included misspellings, apologies to the entire Smith family and a call for forgiveness.

But this apology didn't come from Rock, according to The Associated Press. Leslie Sloane, a publicist for Rock, told the AP the post was fake.

Smith did apologize for his actions. Less than an hour after he hit Rock, Smith apologized to the academy while accepting the best actor award. On Monday, Smith apologized to Rock on Instagram. On Friday, Smith announced in a statement that he resigned from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences.

A photo from the presentation posted on social media is also false.

A meme purportedly showing actress Nicole Kidman reacting as Smith slapped Rock is mislabeled, the AP said.

The photo of Kidman sitting in a chair and gasping was posted online with comments such as, “Nicole Kidman reacting to *that slap* is all of us this morning scrolling through Twitter.”

But that photo was actually taken before the show began.

L.A. Times photographer Myung Chun told the AP he took the photo at 7:19 p.m. EDT.

“It seemed to me that Nicole Kidman was reacting to seeing Jessica Chastain across the room during the nontelevised event,” he said. “She reached out with both arms and waved her hands at her. Shortly thereafter, Chastain came over to meet Kidman and her husband Keith Urban.”

And, no, Rock wasn't wearing a prosthetic cheek.

A Twitter post, which includes a supposed high resolution photo zoomed in on Rock's face just before he was hit, claims, “you can see a pad on (Chris Rock's) cheek.”

But the image has been altered, according to Reuters. The face pad was digitally added to the left side of Rock's face in a Reuters photo taken by photographer Brian Snyder.

Boy didn't flee Ukraine alone

As millions of refugees flee Ukraine to escape the Russian invasion, images posted on the internet show broken families and children without parents. One video showing a young boy crying as he walks alone at the Polish border has been circulating on social media, gathering more than 2.6 million likes on TikTok and more than 148,000 shares on Facebook.

A March 8 Facebook post included the video and the text, “Ukrainian Boy crossing the border alone with his passport, toys and phone number written on his hand!”

This heartbreaking clip is real, but miscaptioned, according to USA Today. The boy was not alone.

“We would like to inform you that, contrary to the unfortunately disseminated information in the media, 4-year-old Valerij did not cross the border alone, he was with his family,” the Polish Border Guard wrote on Twitter, adding that the boy received “sweet gifts from officers” at the border crossing.

There was a report of an 11-year-old Ukrainian boy who fled to Slovakia without his parents, carrying a passport, a plastic bag and a phone number written on his hand. But that case is not related to this video.

More than 3.6 million people have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion began, USA Today said.

Stores stocked with bread

Former President Donald Trump, during a March 29 interview with Just the News, pointed out some recent supply chain issues.

“You go to a store, they don't have bread,” Trump said. “We're like a Third World country.”

Last year stores had trouble getting many products, but currently shoppers have no problem finding bread, according to PolitiFact.

California Polytechnic State University economist Ricky Volpe told PolitiFact he hasn't “seen any evidence to suggest that the food retail sector is facing any structural or widespread shortage of bread products.”

Katie Denis, vice president of communications for the Consumer Brands Association told PolitiFact store shelves are stocked with bread, however, there could be a time when some particular bread products or brands are missing.

“Any spotty outages are driven primarily by labor shortages,” she said.

• Bob Oswald is a veteran Chicago-area journalist and former news editor of the Elgin Courier-News. Contact him at boboswald33@gmail.com