Facts Matter: Michael Jordan did not walk away from Nike over work with transgender star

Recent social media posts claim Basketball Hall of Famer and Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan is walking away from his partnership with Nike, due to the sports apparel company's collaboration with transgender social media personality Dylan Mulvaney.

"Michael Jordan Ends Partnership With Nike: 'Our Values No Longer Align,'" read the headline on a post that includes a photo of Jordan, a photo of Mulvaney and the Nike logo.

Although there was transphobic pushback after a Twitter post in which Mulvaney promoted Nike, there are no credible new reports that Jordan is parting ways with the company. The Associated Press reports the fake headline originated on a satire website.

The fabricated article, by Flagg Eagleton - Patriot, first appeared on the site Patriot Party Press, part of a network of sites called America's Last Line of Defense, which has previously published fake stories. A story it published in 2018 claimed Jordan was leaving the board of directors at Nike. Jordan has never been part of Nike's board.

Patriot Party Press has a disclaimer on its About Us page that states, "Everything on this website is fiction."

A giveaway that the story is fake is the claim Jordan's "proprietary 'jump juice'" gives the Air Jordan sneakers "their air-like quality (and) is one of the most valuable patents in history." But there is no such patent, the AP said.

Mulvaney has also faced recent controversy after a collaboration with Bud Light beer.

CNN Carlson headline is fake

A headline posted on social media, purportedly from a CNN broadcast, claims former Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson is dead after his departure from the network.

A screenshot posted on Twitter includes the topper "CNN BUSINESS," the bylines of two actual CNN reporters, and the headline, "Former Fox News Anchor Tucker Carlson has died from suicide."

But the headline is fake, Reuters reports. There is no record of that headline on the CNN's website or its Twitter account.

"(The screenshot) is a fake and fabricated image," a CNN spokesperson told Reuters. "CNN did not report that."

Antarctic ice is melting

Scientists for years have warned that the Antarctic ice sheet is melting. But recent social media posts contradict that claim.

"The Antarctic ice cap is not melting," climate-change skeptic Judith Curry said in a video posted April 15 on Instagram. "Climate models predict that the Antarctic should be losing sea ice, and that's the exact opposite of what's happening."

Fellow skeptic Don Easterbrook, also featured in the video, concurred: "There's not melting going on in the first place. It's actually growing."

But those claims are wrong, PolitiFact reports. Scientific studies show Antarctica and Greenland ice sheets have been losing mass for decades.

An April 20 report, conducted by a group of polar scientists, said the loss of ice in Antarctica and Greenland has increased sixfold over the past 30 years.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center, at the University of Colorado, Boulder, in March reported that the Antarctic Peninsula has been in "an intense melt season" since November 2022.

And the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, which monitors the ice sheets, said Antarctic ice is melting at a rate of 150 billion tons each year.

Lizzo didn't kill fans

An April 6 Instagram post claims there was a tragedy during a Lizzo concert.

"34 dead after Lizzo attempted to crowd surf," the post read.

But this is fake, PolitiFact reports. There have been no reports this incident happened. The Grammy-winning singer hasn't killed anyone at her concerts

The same fake post, or some version of it, has shown up on social media since at least 2019. In 2021, Lizzo made a statement on her TikTok account to debunk those false rumors.

"So, I've seen a lot of annoying things about me on the internet, but the thing that bothers me the most is this rumor that I stage-dived at a concert and killed somebody. Like, that rumor is a lie first of all, I've never stage-dived in my life," 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.