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  • Snopes Digest Issue #113: Coldplay kiss cam scandal, starvation in Gaza — and more

Snopes Digest Issue #113: Coldplay kiss cam scandal, starvation in Gaza — and more

Here's what's happening inside the Snopes newsroom

Author

Izz LaMagdeleine
August 13, 2025

Aug. 13, 2025・Issue #113

1. Behind the Snopes: Colbert losing $40M

Let's talk about what's going on with Snopes: the newsroom, the products, the people, and everything and anything that makes Snopes, Snopes. This month, Snopes reporter and web producer Megan Loe shares more information about our work fact-checking the claim that “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” was losing $40 million annually.

After CBS canceled "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" last month, some speculated that the move was politically motivated. But others offered another possible explanation: The show was bleeding money. People on social media claimed Colbert's late-night show was losing at least $40 million a year.

We couldn’t independently confirm this number was accurate. That’s because news outlets that shared it cited anonymous sources and CBS did not respond to a request for comment.

However, in one report published by Puck, sources with CBS and Skydance insisted the decision to cancel Colbert’s show was "based on economics, not politics.” But that wasn’t the case across the board, with “two other people with deep ties to CBS and ‘Late Show’” suspecting otherwise, according to the same report.

What we can say for sure is that late-night shows have experienced major financial setbacks in recent years. The Associated Press reported that broadcast networks took in an estimated $439 million in advertising revenue for their late-night programs as recently as 2018, citing advertising firm Guidelines. In 2024, that number dwindled to $220 million, according to the AP.

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2. Fact-checking highlight: Coldplay kiss cam

From Snopes reporter Joey Esposito:

It's been a while since the entire internet united around one viral moment that spawned countless memes, but the drought ended in mid-July when a couple allegedly having an affair were caught canoodling on a kiss cam at a Coldplay concert.

The couple in question were a tech CEO and his company's head of HR, which kept Snopes fact-checkers busy investigating claims about the incident ranging from phony apologies and predictions of the incident on "The Simpsons“ to threats of a lawsuit against Coldplay.

Here are a few articles regarding the Coldplay kiss cam seen around the world:

3. Overheard at Snopes

We look into a lot of weird stuff at Snopes. We imagine it's very interesting to be a fly on the wall, so we wanted to give you a look at some of the things we have to say when fact-checking.

Overheard: Yeah say something like "I wonder how hard it would be to join the Taliban" and I'm sure they'll pick right back up 😆

— Reporter Laerke Christensen

4. Snopes-ing 101: How to contextualize the facts amidst an ‘international war of words’

Fact check like a pro. Here, we’ll give you a peek behind the newsroom curtain by highlighting a recent fact check or sharing some of our tips and tricks for navigating the web. This week, Snopes reporter Taija PerryCook shares how she and fellow reporter Nur Ibraham put the facts in context surrounding starvation in Gaza.

In determining whether the starvation in Gaza had tipped into a classified “famine” by August 2025, we did what we always do: Laid out available evidence from credible sources. However, we didn’t stop there; we contextualized the data – or lack thereof – to show why no one has declared a famine in Gaza yet, Israel’s role in the starvation crisis and what it means for Gazans on the ground.

  • Fact: No one declared a famine in Gaza yet.

  • Fact: According to the United Nations’ World Food Program, a third of the population in Gaza was going multiple days without eating.

    • Context: Unlike starvation caused by natural disaster or geographic inaccessibility, the starvation Gazans are experiencing is a direct result of the territory's destroyed infrastructure and border restrictions imposed on the flow of goods by the Israeli government.

In the realm of accuracy, context is just as crucial as the data itself. Without it, facts are half-formed and therefore prone to mislead readers. Always aim to answer why a fact is true, who or what is responsible and what the potential impact of your findings is in order to ground the facts in reality.

Mental health break

Snopes investigates some grim and depressing claims, so we know how important it is to your mental health to see something silly, funny, or just plain heartwarming. Here are some links that made us smile.

5. Snopes-worthy media

What Snopes is paying attention to across the web.

— Alexander Sammon, Slate

— Sarah Scire, Nieman Lab

— Lisa Armstrong, Columbia Journalism Review

Thanks for reading this edition of the Snopes Digest. We send new issues of the newsletter every month, so please add this email address to your white list and keep an eye out for the next issue.

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