Did NBC broadcast a report that proves the Earth is flat? No, that's not true: NBC covered a rare phenomenon when 99 percent of the people on Earth saw sunlight briefly. This does not mean that the Earth is flat.
The claim appeared in a video on TikTok (archived here) on July 10, 2023, with a text overlay in Arabic on the NBC clipping (translated from Arabic to English by Lead Stories staff):
"NBC has indirectly reported on July 8th that earth is flat."
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Jul 11 13:27:48 2023 UTC)
The video claims that NBC News indirectly confirmed that the Earth is flat.
On July 8, 2023, NBC News' morning show "Today" covered the rare phenomenon where 99 percent of Earth's population were seeing sunlight simultaneously.
The post on TikTok claims that this reported phenomenon would be an undeniable proof that the Earth is flat. This rare natural phenomenon was covered by many serious media outlets with scientific explanations, which did not confirm the claim that Earth is flat.
"This occurs because most of Earth's population lives on one side of the planet," Newsday wrote. National Geographic reported:
Ninety-nine percent of the world's population, nearly eight billion people, will be able to see at least some sunlight at the same moment. Light will reach a majority of people on earth for about a minute just after 7 am Eastern Time, but not everyone will experience the same intensity of the sun's rays.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks related to flat Earth theory can be found here.
