Which mainstream news outlets addressed or debunked the diaper claims and when?
Executive summary
Several mainstream outlets and fact‑checkers publicly addressed and debunked “diaper” rumors during 2024–2025: Snopes documented and verified diaper‑at‑rally reports about Donald Trump in May 2024 (and summarized related checks in December 2024), broad international fact‑checks including Deutsche Welle listed diaper images among the year’s strangest fakes in December 2024, and Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported in June 2025 that AFP and Reuters — supported by reporting and original images from The Washington Post and The New York Times — showed the Biden diaper photo had been digitally altered [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. Snopes: early, specific fact checks on diaper claims (May 2024)
Snopes published a focused investigation in May 2024 that addressed circulating claims about supporters wearing diapers at Donald Trump rallies and concluded that the reports were grounded in verifiable photographs and local reporting, labeling aspects of the story true while documenting provenance and ambiguity about origins; that May 21, 2024 fact‑check became a reference point for later reporting and compilations of similar rumors [1].
2. Deutsche Welle: roundup of bizarre fakes including diaper images (Dec 27, 2024)
Deutsche Welle ran a year‑end piece cataloging the “strangest fakes of 2024,” explicitly naming Twitter/X and social feeds’ diaper allegations about both Donald Trump and Joe Biden as among the false or misleading items that spread widely in 2024, positioning these memes in the broader context of disinformation that rode the election cycle [3].
3. Snopes follow‑up / collection: context and persistence of diaper rumors (Dec 28, 2024)
Snopes’ December 2024 compilation of notable fact checks reiterated that diaper stories recurred across platforms and that some rumors initially plausible were ultimately verified while others were demonstrably false; the collection underscores how the diaper theme evolved from stunts and images into broader rumor threads that fact‑checkers tracked throughout 2024 [2].
4. RFA and wire services on the Biden altered photo (June 4, 2025)
Radio Free Asia’s June 4, 2025 report focused on a later wave: a digitally altered photograph of President Joe Biden showing a diaper after a fall. RFA cited Reuters and AFP reporting, and pointed readers to original photo and video published by The Washington Post and The New York Times, all of which show no diaper in the unaltered material and indicate the image circulating online had been manipulated [4].
5. How mainstream wire coverage functioned: attribution and image verification
The debunking pattern across AFP, Reuters and major U.S. papers showcased standard newsroom practice: sourcing the original AFP stills and institutional video, comparing them to the viral image, and concluding the diaper was a post‑production insertion; RFA’s account explicitly notes Reuters and AFP found the photo digitally altered and that the original media contain no diaper [4]. This is the principal mainstream debunking chain for the Biden photo.
6. Alternative narratives, agendas and reporting gaps
Some commentators and regional broadcasters propagated the diaper claim (RFA cites a Taiwanese commentator and NetEase reposting), and partisan social feeds continued to recycle diaper imagery as ridicule or political theater; mainstream outlets tended to treat the Trump rally diaper instances differently—Snopes found photographic evidence of participants—while treating the Biden diaper image as a clear manipulated digital fake based on wire reporting and original footage [1] [4]. The available sources do not provide a comprehensive list of every mainstream outlet that ran follow‑ups, nor do they catalogue timestamps for every corrective story beyond the dates above, so this account is limited to the dated, sourced coverage in the provided reporting [1] [2] [3] [4].
7. Bottom line: who debunked what, and when
In short: Snopes tackled and documented diaper claims tied to Trump rallies in May 2024 and summarized related fact checks in December 2024 [1] [2]; Deutsche Welle included diaper fakes in a December 27, 2024 roundup of the year’s strangest falsifications [3]; and Radio Free Asia reported on June 4, 2025 that AFP and Reuters — supported by The Washington Post and The New York Times’ original images and video — demonstrated the Biden diaper photo was digitally altered [4]. The record in the supplied reporting shows mainstream debunking clustered around those dates and outlets; further follow‑up corrections or additional mainstream items beyond these sources are not documented in the material provided [1] [2] [3] [4].