# Media staging reports **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 16, 2005, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-staging-reports/326469 "2005-10-16T15:03:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-staging-reports/326469/1 "2005-10-16T15:03:46Z")
Just saw this on CNN. Location reporters apparently don’t like just standing in front of the camera. They’d rather be doing something like riding a train or walking in the rain. ‘Anything to get attention,’ says Wolf Blitzer. So they showed this clip… A reporter is paddling in a canoe to show how bad the flooding is where she is. As she’s reporting, two guys walk between her and the camera. The water is only about four inches deep! Wolf Blitzer: ‘Talk about shallow reporting!’ Of course, this bit was shown just before _The Today Show_’s segment criticising the President for staging events. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-staging-reports/326469/2 "2005-10-16T15:05:21Z")
Wait… _The Today Show_. NBC, right? Isn’t NBC the network that showed the propensity for a certain SUV to explode on impace by putting remotely-ignited model rocket engines in the fuel filler tube a few years ago? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-staging-reports/326469/3 "2005-10-16T16:53:33Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > Isn’t NBC the network that showed the propensity for a certain SUV to explode on impace by putting remotely-ignited model rocket engines in the fuel filler tube a few years ago? :dubious: I know of a rigged-test case involving Consumer Reports that resulted in a lawsuit, but not NBC. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-staging-reports/326469/4 "2005-10-16T18:01:23Z")
> [@](#): > > Isn’t NBC the network that showed the propensity for a certain SUV to explode on impace by putting remotely-ignited model rocket engines in the fuel filler tube a few years ago? IIRC, it had to do with full-sized Chevy pickups, whose gas tanks were positioned so as to make them vulnerable to side impacts (although not vulnerable enough, apparently, for the gasoline to ignite when _Dateline NBC_ tried repeatedly to do so in simulated crashes without the model rocket engines to help the process along). Anyway, I’m a bit unclear on the actual subject of this thread, so I’ll express my opinions based on what I think it’s about. Do television reporters fake stuff up from time to time? Yup. Has the White House faked stuff up for PR purposes? Yup, and apparently rather more often than just from time to time. Is it hypocritical if the media criticize the administration for faking stuff up if they’ve done so themselves? Yup, but that doesn’t make the fakery any less significant. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-staging-reports/326469/5 "2005-10-16T18:11:20Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > Anyway, I’m a bit unclear on the actual subject of this thread, so I’ll express my opinions based on what I think it’s about. Do television reporters fake stuff up from time to time? Yup. Not that they have exclusive domain over that, but yes, they do. This stuff really shouldn’t be tolerated. The fakery in the OP is something you might find on the Daily Show. ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-staging-reports/326469/6 "2005-10-16T18:20:05Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > Wait… _The Today Show_. NBC, right? > > Isn’t NBC the network that showed the propensity for a certain SUV to explode on impace by putting remotely-ignited model rocket engines in the fuel filler tube a few years ago? :dubious: Here it is (an archived Time mag. article on the brouhaha): [http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/LIE/nbc.html](http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/LIE/nbc.html) > [@](#): > > Time > > February 22, 1993 William A. Henry III > > **PRESS: Where NBC Went Wrong The network suffers a humiliating bout of confessions and soul-searching after admitting it rigged the crash-and-burn of a GM truck** > > But for a puff of smoke, it all might have turned out differently. > > Last week General Motors Corp. might still have been reeling from a $105.2 million jury verdict, awarded to an Atlanta couple whose son died when his GM truck exploded in a collision. NBC News might have been touting itself for having exposed the danger of GM’s controversial ‘‘sidesaddle’’ gas tanks in a riveting Dateline NBC segment. Instead the network singed its reputation, and the car company won in the court of public opinion the safety battle it had lost in the courthouse. > > Dateline’s report on Nov. 17 featured 14 min. of balanced debate, capped by 57 seconds of crash footage that explosively showed how the gas tanks of certain old GM trucks could catch fire in a sideways collision. > > Following a tip, GM hired detectives, searched 22 junkyards for 18 hours, and found evidence to debunk almost every aspect of the crash sequence. Last week, in a devastating press conference, GM showed that the conflagration was rigged, its causes misattributed, its severity overstated and other facts distorted. Two crucial errors: NBC said the truck’s gas tank had ruptured, yet an X ray showed it hadn’t; NBC consultants set off explosive miniature rockets beneath the truck split seconds before the crash – yet no one told the viewers. … ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-staging-reports/326469/7 "2005-10-17T01:23:58Z")
I’ve been hearing alot about the recent ABC Primetime report about the ‘Dangers of Reactors on college campus’ and their lack of security’. Another really trumped up set of charges. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-staging-reports/326469/8 "2005-10-17T23:48:50Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > Anyway, I’m a bit unclear on the actual subject of this thread… More of a funny MPSIMS thing. The image of this woman paddling her canoe, and then having a couple of guys walking by in inches-deep water was amusing to me. ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2005, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-staging-reports/326469/9 "2005-10-18T15:40:02Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > More of a funny MPSIMS thing. The image of this woman paddling her canoe, and then having a couple of guys walking by in inches-deep water was amusing to me. Oh, yeah, it was hilarious, but it’s also disgusting that a woman purportedly conveying the _news_ did so bu purposefully misrepresenting the exact story she was reporting! –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2005, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-staging-reports/326469/10 "2005-10-18T15:46:50Z")
Well, it _was_ flooded. Perhaps the flooding was much deeper in other areas. But filmmakers (and I say this while currently involved in making a film) will often get shots that _look_ real but are easier to get than getting footage from the locations where the situation is as they want to depict. Had the two guys not walked in front of the camera, the shot would have been convincing. So it may just be a case of getting a shot where it was easy while the situation was real. I saw another clip on _The Daily Show_. This time the woman claims she is in deep water ‘about four feet deep’, and pokes her paddle into it to demonstrate. The paddle can be seen to strike the bottom, indicating the water there was only a foot deep. And in the background a man can be seen standing in water only a couple/few inches deep. The funny thing (beside the guy in the B.G.) was that the current carried the woman out of frame. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2005, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-staging-reports/326469/11 "2005-10-18T16:59:09Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > I saw another clip on _The Daily Show_. This time the woman claims she is in deep water ‘about four feet deep’, and pokes her paddle into it to demonstrate. The paddle can be seen to strike the bottom, indicating the water there was only a foot deep. And in the background a man can be seen standing in water only a couple/few inches deep. The funny thing (beside the guy in the B.G.) was that the current carried the woman out of frame. 😛 They actually aired the clip that inspired this thread last night. The correspondent said “they” wouldn’t let her go into the deeper water for safety reasons. Maybe so, but you’ve got to ditch the freaking canoe if you don’t need it. If those guys hadn’t walked by and embarrassed her, you know she wouldn’t have volunteered the truth that she was only in about six inches of water. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2005, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-staging-reports/326469/12 "2005-10-18T20:19:12Z")
Letterman showed it as well. ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2005, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-staging-reports/326469/13 "2005-10-18T20:47:06Z")
I do believe her career is over.