False News Report Causes Panic in Georgia
March 16th, 2010
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A mass panic of sorts occurred in Georgia (the country, not the US state) after a major news station aired a 30 minute news report indicating that the country was being invaded, the president had been assassinated and citizens were in danger of being caught in the crossfire of the crisis. The station claimed that the report had been part of a dramatic presentation of a hypothetical future invasion. However, it was presented in a manner entirely consistent with a real news report. Even the reporters and anchors were the same as those who normally report the news.
While I often criticize those who buy into a mass panic for not exercising due restraint and skepticism, it’s hard to blame anyone in this case. The reports were realistic and did not appear to be any different from standard news reports. Furthermore, the events reported were not beyond the realm of possibility, especially given that the country had been involved in a serious military conflict with Russia in 2008.
This would have been the equivalent of Americans turning on their televisions and seeing Brian Williams, Katie Couric or another major news anchor at their news desk reporting that a plane had just crashed into the Empire State Building.
An explanation of the broadcast being a hypothetical situation dramatized as a newscast was run at the beginning of the broadcast. Of course, a single warning of this type would not do much for those who tuned in during the middle of the apparent newscast. Even in a day and age where there are alternate sources of information, such as the internet, the way the story was presented caused many to react with such panic that they were too busy trying to get to safety to stop and check out a few websites and Twitter feeds.
Some are accusing the government of participating in this ruse as a political stunt. Exactly who knew what when, however, remains unclear.
Who would have thought a fake news report could inspire panic? Where have I heard something like this before?
Actually, comparing this to the 1938 Orson Welles broadcast is a bit unfair, because in the case of the Welles dramatization, the events were generally over dramatized and the premise – an invasion by Martians, was considerably less plausible than an invasion of the country of Georgia – which could actually happen.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 at 8:55 pm and is filed under Culture, Events, Misc, Obfuscation, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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March 17th, 2010 at 1:41 am
Strange and disturbing event, but it’s getting plenty of coverage in the mainstream press, so I’m not sure what there is to add to it.
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March 17th, 2010 at 5:17 am
The question of objective plausibility of such a story is not so important than the one of percieved plausibility. Today, a fake news broadcast about an invasion by evil Martians would not have the same effect as in 1938, when Mars was widly considered habitable (even inhabited), even within the scientific community (think of Percival Lovell as one example).
The percieved plausibility of a Russian invasion in Georgia was off course still higher.
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March 17th, 2010 at 5:51 am
I wouldn’t say it’s unfair. If an implausible event is shown in the guise of news and causes panic, it’s only logical that a plausible event would cause an even greater reaction. If they were the other way around – the implausible event was subdued while the plausible event was over-hyped, that could be considered an unfair comparison.
A similar TV programme was put out here some time ago. I don’t recall whether it was a plane drash or contagion or what but I do remember not being entirely certain whether the story was real or not until I checked the TV listings. A TV programme of this sort not lose any impact to have a marker on the screen to indicate that the story was fictitious.
Well it would lessen the impact – far fewer people would panic – but it wouldn’t lessen the desired impact, assuming mass panic is not in fact the goal.
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March 17th, 2010 at 11:56 am
Bynaus said:
Maybe that’s true, but would it really be so plausible that they would invade earth all of a sudden? Even if mars was habitable that did not mean it was inhabited anyway, and if it were and the beings had the technology to come to earth in mass would they need to fight us? A race so technically superior would hardly be at “war” with the earth. It would be more like they’d just walk over us. Nothing we could do would stop them. A very one-sided battle, if a battle at all.
Especially given the other fact of the times. Wasn’t a martian attack already a common theme of b-list science fiction? The story was not even original, it was HG Wells. I’m not saying HG Wells was b-list though, but I mean, the notion of aliens coming down from mars and attacking New Jersey still seems a little far fetched for any time.
Like, to put it in modern context, today we do not know that there are not aliens far beyond the solar system. We know that there are probably habitable planets out there somewhere, but it still would be far fetched to see a report about aliens attacking earth.
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March 17th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
This is a clear case of criminal nuisance, and should be addressed as such by the legal system there.
A public nuisance is an unreasonable interference with the public’s rights. It includes conduct that interferes with public health, safety, peace or convenience. The unreasonableness may be evidenced by statute, or by the nature of the act, including how long, and how bad, the effects of the activity may be.
This antic seems to meet all of the necessary criterion.
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March 17th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
DV82XL said:
Indeed, it fits closely with the classic example: crying fire in a crowded theater.
In the above case, with full knowledge that there is no fire and that crying fire will cause those present to panic and attempt to get out with the significant possibility that injury or death will occur due to the stampede that is caused.
I would not call it a criminal case in the circumstance of Orsen Welles and the Mercury Radio Theater.
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March 18th, 2010 at 3:20 am
I agree with dv8 and drbuzz0. This seems to be something that was done intentionally. Everything I’ve seen of the coverage indicates that this was no misunderstanding or failure to gauge the public response. War of the Worlds was probably unintentional, but this looks like no such thing.
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March 19th, 2010 at 12:51 am
I’ve seen some dramatizations on tv before about stuff and they use news reports and stuff. The simple way of making sure nobody believes it is to use fictional people for the president and the newscasters and give a fictional name to the news station and everything. It’s like what they do on shows like “The West Wing”
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March 22nd, 2010 at 12:46 pm
One can only wonder if this is an attempt to start “the boy who cried wolf” theme. Russia did invade Georgia in 2008, perhaps this was to slow reactions in the future.
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March 23rd, 2010 at 8:01 am
I think the comparison to “War of the Worlds” is quite fair. Yes, invasion by Martians is less plausible — but if some people in America believed that in 1938, then of course Georgians today would believe the far more likely invasion by Russians. Newscasters worldwide learned a valuable lesson from the “War of the Worlds” fiasco — be very, very careful of fictitious news broadcasts. But evidently some have now forgotten that lesson.
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