Fact check: False claim that CNN wrote about In-N-Out, white supremacy

The claim: CNN published a headline calling In-N-Out the choice of 'white supremacists'

Fast-food chain In-N-Out has recently found itself in the headlines after refusing to comply with a San Francisco vaccine mandate. The company said it would not become the "vaccination police for any government."  

Now, social media posts claim CNN is opining on the nature of the restaurant's clientele.

"In And Out is the fast food of white supremacists" reads the screenshot of a purported headline in an Oct. 27 Facebook post. The article is supposedly an opinion piece published on Oct. 20 by "Charlie DeClown."

The post accumulated more than 2,000 interactions within the first week. Similar versions of this claim gathered hundreds more. The claim was also echoed in tweets that accumulated more than 10,000 likes.

But a CNN spokesperson told USA TODAY the headline is fake.

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USA TODAY reached out to the user behind the Oct. 27 post for comment.

The headline isn't real

An online search for the headline on the CNN website didn't return any results. Matt Dornic, head of strategic communications for CNN Worldwide, told USA TODAY the headline was fabricated.

"It’s an absurd and obviously fake image of a story that does not appear on any CNN platform," Dornic said via an email. 

A clear piece of evidence that the headline has been made up is the misspelling of the restaurant's name – "In And Out." The supposed author, Charlie DeClown, is also not found anywhere on the network's website.

"If the poor picture quality and incorrect font don’t give it away, I certainly hope users will pause at the phony writer’s name," said Dornic.

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USA TODAY has previously debunked fake CNN headlines on the Taliban and COVID-19.

Our rating: False

Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that CNN published a headline calling In-N-Out the choice of "white supremacists." The headline could not be found on the CNN website, and a spokesperson for the news outlet confirmed it was never published.

Our fact-check sources:

• USA TODAY, Oct. 20, In-N-Out decision to not check customers' vaccination status stirs political debate on social media
• USA TODAY, Oct. 27, Another In-N-Out location shuts down after refusing to check customers' vaccination status
• SF.GOV, accessed Nov. 1, Vaccine required
• CNN, accessed Nov. 1
• Matt Dornic, Nov. 1, email exchange with USA TODAY
• PolitiFact, Oct. 29, No, this isn’t a real CNN headline about In-N-Out

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Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.