Robert Martin & Laurie Kirchner, co-producers of the Ben Vanderford beheading video hoax that came out yesterday, have released a press release complaining about how they have been treated unfairly in the press (up through and including various blogs).

This video is not meant to be a pro or anti war commentary. The comments of Ben in the movie regarding ending the occupation were simply emphasize realism in what someone being held hostage would have potentially said while pleading for their life. How the video should be viewed is that it exposes problems in the media. We rely much too heavily on Reuters and Associated Press for our media coverage. After the Middle Eastern networks aired the videos obtained via the internet--not posted on any websites by us as reported by fox news, AP and Reuters picked it up. Then plenty of news organizations began playing it as fact. Stop and think how a similar, but much more harmful hoax could be conducted. Physical evidence should be the new standard in the modern digital age, rather than grainy videos.

It is not like we purposefully dragged this hoax out in any manner, or ever sent the video to any news or law enforcement saying it was true. To the contrary, as soon as the story broke Benjamin Vanderford immediately confirmed that it was a hoax. Perhaps if they had attempted to contact Ben before publishing the story as true, none of this "hoax" business would have ever occured--after all his home address is in the video. Shortly after the video was made we forgot about it, until Ben was woken up last Saturday.

If you check Kazaa, there are other faked death videos being shared. We never envisioned the scale our video would be published--this scope is thanks to lazy organizations such as AP and Reuters who published it, and Fox News who continues to run the story of the "hoax" more than any other network.

If Fox and a few other TV networks really are sensitive to the families they would have done as other networks have largely done--which is to not air the story on tv. Or perhaps AP and Reuters could have just done responsible journalism in the first place and this never would have happened. But it's easier to blame Ben and the video producers rather than take on the worldwide problem we have in news reporting.

We are also shocked by the reaction of some educated people. For example, from Crystal Carreon's Mercury News article: "``It's a cheap shot,'' said Theodore Glasser, Stanford University professor of communications. ``It's like bombing a building to see if security measures are in place. . . . You don't demonstrate something like that at the public's expense.''

Here's hoping that Vanderford and his friends' antics will get him in enough trouble that no one else will try the same kind of asshat stunt.

Posted by: mhking at 01:59 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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