A rumor users shared online in January 2026 claimed that cable news network MS NOW, formerly MSNBC, broadcast an artificial intelligence-enhanced photo of slain Minneapolis intensive care nurse Alex Pretti. According to users’ social media posts, the image presented a more attractive version of Pretti, who cared for critically ill veterans for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Federal immigration agents fatally shot Pretti, 37, on a Minneapolis street on Jan. 24 — a killing captured on video by multiple witnesses, igniting a wave of renewed protests of the immigration enforcement tactics authorized by President Donald Trump’s administration.
Readers emailed us to ask about MS NOW featuring an AI-enhanced image and searched Snopes’ website for more information. In short, it was true that the network aired an inauthentic image of Pretti.
Looks like the image was width corrected as the original seems like it was a photograph taken of a portrait image shot from an angle. Might have been run through remini or some image correction service like that.
It’s not like he was posed with an arsenal of AR-15s and a “Fuck Trump” banner in the background…
They definitely used AI given it hallucinated garbled nonsense onto his scrubs. The original image does look like a picture of a picture, but this was not “corrected” by a human
“we just posted what we found on the internet” - da news
“It doesn’t matter if what we say is true or heavily biased, as long as it gets attention” - every mainstream nedia journalist
