ABC News Broadcasts Footage of Gun Show Demonstration and Tells Viewers It Is Turks Attacking Kurds
Are you distrustful of coverage of what is happening now in northern Syria between the Kurds and the Turkish army? You have good reason to be.
ABC aired supposedly shocking footage Monday morning purporting to be from the front-line battle between the Syrian Kurds and the invading Turks. The only problem is that the footage appears to come from a nighttime demonstration at the Knob Creek Gun Range in West Point, Kentucky.
After seeing a comment from Wojciech Pawelczyk, I began making some calls. As of this writing, it appears that this video is a hoax, and ABC has pulled it down.
“We are still investigating,” a representative for the gun range told the Washington Examiner Monday, adding the images aired by ABC “looks to be” from the Kentucky property.
“As of right now,” the spokesperson added, “it seems to be our footage.”
A spokesperson for ABC conceded it made a big mistake.
Here is the tweet that prompted the story:
Wow! ABC News is trying to pass gun range videos as combat footage from Syria pic.twitter.com/zfTWtwwSfZ
— Wojciech Pawelczyk 🇵🇱🇺🇸 (@PolishPatriotTM) October 14, 2019
The best part is how this will be used to “prove” that any story about the carnage in Syria is Fake News. Going forward, literally any story that documents what the Kurds suffer, as a result of Trump’s going off script on a phone call, will be dismissed by intellectually lazy and partisan Trump superfans.
Which may be exactly what was intended by whoever passed the video on to ABC News. It makes me wonder whether Trump superfans — or more ominously, people working for Erdogan — were involved. It’s a tactic that folks attempted to use on me during Weinergate: target the principal source reporting unfavorable information, and feed them fake similar information that you can later reveal to be fake. (It didn’t work on me during Weinergate, but they tried.)
So let’s keep our eye on the ball. Who passed ABC News the video? And who stands to benefit from stories about Turks slaughtering Kurds being treated as a hoax?
Yes, laugh it up, but be wary about being manipulated. The fact that ABC News fell for the Knob Creek hoax is funny — but there could be dark forces behind this. Forces even darker — if you Trump fans can imagine this — than ABC News.
Which does not let ABC News off the hook. If anything, the fact that they might have been manipulated by people seeking to take attention off the Turkish massacre should make them more careful, and makes this lapse even more shameful.
[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]
Great Post!
It’s classic Russian strategy to flood disinformation and then point to that to show you can’t trust anything. Then they can be bad guys and it’s hard to expose it.
As the post shows, and as the Trump fans all pushing this instantly, this confusion helps Turkey kill people. And it was (deliberately) easy to find.
Dustin (6d7686) — 10/14/2019 @ 10:16 amThank you for this post, Patterico.
BuDuh (ff26aa) — 10/14/2019 @ 10:17 amAnd the people who will do that are guaranteed to keep on trusting Trump even though his rate of falsehood is vastly worse than that of any major American media network. Some of them no doubt love the appalling “superhero Trump slays the media” film shown at Mar-a-Lago, and the T-shirt saying “Tree — Rope — Journalists (some assembly required).”
After many years of objecting to ideological bias in the media, I’m now more offended by the people who made “Fake News!” their war-cry.
Radegunda (d2a4ef) — 10/14/2019 @ 10:30 amWell its not the first time, they did it with police station footage in sanford matt gutman is still the reporter out there
narciso (d1f714) — 10/14/2019 @ 10:39 amTheres so much omission addition misatribution of motives in the press, like covering for warren selective leaking
narciso (d1f714) — 10/14/2019 @ 10:43 amGreat point. Indeed everyone who breathlessly posted the ABC hoax is someone who has rolled their eyes when it’s pointed out that Trump lies. Like any adult understands Trump is just savvy about how the world works, and he’s working the system when he lies. But trust there was no collusion, etc etc, if the administration says so.
Dustin (6d7686) — 10/14/2019 @ 10:54 amThen you have the reporters who sleep eith a source (hardest working mom*) who selectively leaks stories in stead of working as a dia analyst
narciso (d1f714) — 10/14/2019 @ 10:55 ami can’t even,
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-10-14/elizabeth-warren-flaunts-fitness-health-democratic-candidates
narciso (d1f714) — 10/14/2019 @ 11:14 amEven when exercising Warren’s animatronics are on display. Hilarious!
Colonel Haiku (fb7ea4) — 10/14/2019 @ 11:17 amas natural as men in blank, lol, guttman went to la after the Sanford Sanford snafu,
narciso (d1f714) — 10/14/2019 @ 11:22 amIn contrast, the White House press office still has a little catching up to do.
Dave (1bb933) — 10/14/2019 @ 11:23 amone toke over the line sweet Jesus
mg (8cbc69) — 10/14/2019 @ 11:27 amone toke over the line
And who exactly is “Wojciech Pawelczyk” — a Russian twitter troll? Equally if not more disturbing: how can nighttime gun range video from Knob Creek, KY., U.S.A.– pass for overseas combat footage??
This is how:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7WrUEpJAFQ
‘The Wild Bunch’ sign says it all: watch for one of these machine-gunning wackjobs to show up at your local Walmart one day– with the safety catch off.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/14/2019 @ 11:45 amAt least they were smart enough to take down the blue Covington Catholic pennants.
urbanleftbehind (ea633b) — 10/14/2019 @ 11:50 amThat’s Polsk not Russian, DC…we had one do the deed this past weekend.
urbanleftbehind (ea633b) — 10/14/2019 @ 11:52 amGood to know the Trump super-haters are sometime skeptical of the media, when its shown by somebody else that the media is 100% making it up. Otherwise, they just accept anything the MSM says that’s anti-Trump Cf: St. Mueller and St. Comey and trump-russia and now the fake Ukraine Trump “Whistle blower”. But it doesn’t matter because “The walls are closing in” and Fake Fox News polls are showing 54% want Trump impeached and removed.
rcocean (1a839e) — 10/14/2019 @ 11:54 am@15. I know- but that doesn’t mean he/she ain’t ‘Putin’ it out for Vlad.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/14/2019 @ 11:56 amI’m going to withhold judgement until ABC explains how the mistake happened. I will have not trouble believing
1. It was an human error and stock footage from another even was used in this story.
2. It was intentional on their part.
3. They got played.
My money is on #1. Stupidity is more often the answer than malice.
Time123 (ca85c9) — 10/14/2019 @ 11:58 amProject Vertias is releasing CNN tapes and it looks like News President Zucker just tells everyone what to think @ 9AM every day and his CNN flunkies go out and do it.
rcocean (1a839e) — 10/14/2019 @ 11:58 amYou don’t do very well at reading the posts do you?
Time123 (ca85c9) — 10/14/2019 @ 12:00 pmWhen someone makes the same mistake, the same way, 50 times in a row, only a boob thinks they’ve “Made a mistake”. If a waitress overcharges you every time you go there, and says “Oh, sorry I’m bad at math” Only boob believes it more than twice.
So, when someone finds ABC using fake footage or making up quotes and sources to FAVOR Trump – I’ll start believing it was a “Mistake”.
I
rcocean (1a839e) — 10/14/2019 @ 12:03 pm@20 – I don’t care what you think of my reading skills. Got a point? Make it.
rcocean (1a839e) — 10/14/2019 @ 12:04 pmYou mean they have a daily staff meeting where the news resident prioritizes which stories they’re going to focus on that day? How dastardly. I guess my boss was telling me what to think this morning when in his staff meeting; the fiend.
Based on their previous work I don’t expect PV to put the information into context, or even edit it honestly. Hopefully the don’t lose 250K in legal judgments for it this time.
Time123 (ea2b98) — 10/14/2019 @ 12:05 pm@15. Yeah– tragic; it’s becoming so commonplace it gets pushed out of the top tier of news stories. Easy to see why Kentucky’s McConnell stalls any Senate action on gun legislation w/that video; it could have passed for nighttime training out at Camp Pendleton; helluva waste of good Kentucky real estate, too.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/14/2019 @ 12:07 pmABC 100% needs to own and correct this error. It’s unprofessional and dumb.
There have been multiple accounts from numerous named sources on the violence of the Turkish invasion into Northern Syria.
Both are true at the same time.
Time123 (ca85c9) — 10/14/2019 @ 12:11 pmrcocean (1a839e) — 10/14/2019 @ 11:54 am
Given Patterico’s history with the LA Dog Trainer aka Times, that’s a rather wierd thing to say on this blog.
Kishnevi (6355b8) — 10/14/2019 @ 12:12 pmYou’re active on the blog and have been for a while. You’ve see the many articles that have been put up criticizing the media when they make a mistake.
You’re either dishonest in your statement Good to know the Trump super-haters are sometime skeptical of the media, when its shown by somebody else that the media is 100% making it up. Otherwise, they just accept anything the MSM says that’s anti-Trump or you’re missed the point. I went with the assumption that you missed the point.
Time123 (ca85c9) — 10/14/2019 @ 12:16 pm@18. Human error – an intern; or editorial laziness; several years ago, a major newspaper did a benign story on an Apollo command module on tour and being set up for public display, complete with a photo of the spacecraft. Except the photo in the piece which was supposed to be of the spacecraft itself was actually one of a plastic model exactly like the one on a shelf in my den. Contacted the paper; corrections made.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/14/2019 @ 12:19 pm@28, maybe is was something like that. But given the subject matter there should have been steps to prevent that. I think ABC owes a very clear explanation of how the process failed, if in fact it did.
Time123 (ca85c9) — 10/14/2019 @ 12:23 pmI find that very hard to accept in this particular instance, DCSCA. I usually attribute to stupidity things that could be explained by stupidity rather than malice, but I have a very hard time seeing how this happened without malice on the part of someone. Perhaps you could walk me through the process of how this clip ends up, purely through human “error,” being portrayed as a Turkish attack. I don’t see it.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/14/2019 @ 12:38 pm@30. Depends on when the package was assembled for broadcast but holiday weekend, hurried intern staff pull b-roll in assembly under deadline pressure for air- and it gets by an editor, usually the less experienced ones on a weekend schedule. Doesn’t excuse it, but it does happen–experienced it a few times back in the CBS days myself; wrong photos, incorrect captioning and such. [A [personal favorite is CBS repeatedly airing b-roll of Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon when it’s actually Buzz Aldrin.] The important thing is it was caught, acknowledged and correctable. Frankly, I’d never heard of the Knob Creek, KY ‘machinegunfest’– until now– so tht kind of nighttime civilian gun range activity being able to ‘pass’ for combat footage may not be the sort of ‘advertising message’ the Knob Hill folks want out. OTOH maybe it is.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/14/2019 @ 1:01 pm@31, all of that is possible, and if true shows a complete failure of leadership at ABC. If that’s the case they need to admit it, own it, and explain how they’re correcting it.
Time123 (ea2b98) — 10/14/2019 @ 1:12 pmRecall much of the ‘b-roll’ footage of the Pearl Harbor attack we see today is actually ‘fake news’ – the images lifted from John Ford’s documentary series on same. Most people don’t know the difference– and don’t care.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/14/2019 @ 1:14 pmmatt gutman, should by all rights be eating garbage from a dumpster, along with the other reporter from nbc who ended up in seattle,
narciso (d1f714) — 10/14/2019 @ 1:22 pmhe was Acosta 1.0
https://theothermccain.com/2019/10/14/there-are-these-people-in-this-country/
narciso (d1f714) — 10/14/2019 @ 1:30 pm“ all of that is possible, and if true shows a complete failure of leadership at ABC. ”
Certainly didn’t need to wait for this to notice “a complete failure of leadership at ABC”, but YMMV.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 10/14/2019 @ 1:31 pmwe’re way past enemy action,
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/scott-whitlock/2019/10/14/still-silent-nets-ignore-news-whistleblower-worked-joe-biden
narciso (d1f714) — 10/14/2019 @ 1:35 pm@25. That’s what happens when news becomes a ‘profit center’– you cut back on staff, shutter int’l bureaus and depend increasingly on stringers– and stringers for stringers and sources tossed aboard over the transom; the easiest and cheapest outlets for information– like the smartphone in your pocket. The editorial process is being destroyed by a deadline-driven news cycle that keeps shrinking from a day, to hours– to mere minutes, if not seconds. It may be good for the bottom line each quarter, but it makes for more work for the news consumer– which this snafu demonstrates.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/14/2019 @ 1:36 pmthe little I recall, from that period, frank Reynolds was a professional, then Palestinian apologist peter jenning, who probably would have had a serious #metoo file, and ted Koppel, who were increasing hacks,
narciso (d1f714) — 10/14/2019 @ 1:40 pmStill not convincing. General observations about hurried interns and b-roll stil don’t explain how it happens. The closest thing I can imagine is an instruction to “find me any footage of any kind of shooting or explosions!” and it still doesn’t really ring true. Again: walk me through how this ends up being submitted.
I can see how Buzz Aldrin gets substituted for Neil Armstrong. I’m still having trouble following the mechanics of how “gun show shooting and explosions” end up being presented as “warfare in Syria.”
I believe the much more likely explanation is deliberate misleading propaganda by some bad actor.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/14/2019 @ 1:49 pmFor example: a hurried intern could grab footage off YouTube labeled “Syrian fighting” that was really a gun show demonstration — but only if someone put a gun show demonstration on YouTube and called it Syrian fighting. My guess is that this was fed to ABC News somehow. But how?
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/14/2019 @ 1:51 pmIt’s a safe bet to be skeptical of everything you see in the media, especially when it confirms your bias.
Frosty, Fp (f27e97) — 10/14/2019 @ 1:54 pmbut they’ll be totes hard hitting on good morning America, tomorrow,
https://dailycaller.com/2019/10/14/hunter-biden-still-holds-stake-in-chinese-private-equity-firm-his-business-partner-retains-supervisor-role/
narciso (d1f714) — 10/14/2019 @ 1:56 pmreally, is it beyond the pale,
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/brian-ross-tea-party-colorado-shooting_n_1689471
narciso (d1f714) — 10/14/2019 @ 1:59 pmcheck any network of the six,
https://freebeacon.com/politics/cnn-failed-to-disclose-warren-town-hall-questioner-was-maxed-out-donor/
narciso (d1f714) — 10/14/2019 @ 2:02 pm@39. ABC News was in perpetual 3rd place behind CBS News and NBC News. However, ABC Sports was turned into a hugely profitable winner thanks to the razzle-dazzle graphics and what was then seen as eye-pleasing, fast and colorful image packaging innovated by the late, great Roone Arledge. Arledge was handed ABC News to goose up– and he did, using most of the successful elements from the ABC Sports model– and ABC News became competitive.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/14/2019 @ 2:03 pmI doubt it’s some elaborate plan from an embedded Trump-Super-Fan or Turkey-Superfan intentionally doing this to muddy the waters.
The simplest answer is that this is just another example (no. 3,400,324) of the media doing their best to tailor the news as least favorable as possible towards Trump.
You want more #FakeNews and Trump bashing the news? This is how you get more #FakeNews and Trump bashing the news.
It’s that simple.
whembly (fd57f6) — 10/14/2019 @ 2:03 pmpar for the course,
https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/10/14/exposecnnpart1/
narciso (d1f714) — 10/14/2019 @ 2:09 pm@40. ‘I can see how Buzz Aldrin gets substituted for Neil Armstrong.’
See, I can’t–especially with Armstrong standing in the distant background behind Aldrin, albeit, partially obscured by a LM strut- but he’s there. Not to go into the weeds, but you help make my point- the Aldrin television image is a brighter, clearer video segment strictly speaking from a television production POV– so a young online producer/editor goes to a ‘man on moon’ clip to insert in a package for the ‘b-roll’ and over time, the error gets cemented in place. That’s what they look at- production value of the image. It’s the editor’s job to catch the errors.
‘How it happens’ is how the packages are assembled; usually by under paid, over worked 25-year-olds– or interns under deadline pressure in wee hours at a computer screen or a videotape editing console in a room cramped with warm equipment downloading satellite feeds or reviewing online imagery. It’s real grunt work, too. They have a time allotment and a multiple shot list for each package- “-insert firefight- w/correspondent v/o” – edit down content for the time slot allotted and pass it along to the editor[s] to clear for air.
Haven’t checked lately, so don’t know if ABC News broadcasts have a single managing editor as they have rotating anchors for weekends but ultimately it would be the ME’s responsibility to have stop this from airing. Cronkite purposely had himself named ME so as to have final say as to what made it to air on the CBS Evening News.
It’s not an excuse but someone will have their butt chewed out over it; and on holiday weekends, less experienced staff get stuck w/t gigs and unfortunately errors get through an equally less experienced editor and errors make it to air. Watch some of your local news on weekends or around holidays– you can spot the-young-one-snafus bloom.
In the end, it was caught, but night time machine gun fire on a civilian gun range capable of passing for military combat footage may not necessarily be the kind of publicity the folks in Knob Creek, KY., want.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/14/2019 @ 2:49 pm@41.Patterico, I would agree w/that assessment; how ABC sourced the ‘video’ is important in the chain to trace– and it comes back to slack editing– and indicative of the problem I noted in #38.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/14/2019 @ 2:57 pmSpeaking as a person who is intellectually at leisure myself, I put my ten seconds of time in and concluded that intellectual laziness is found on both sides of this blog.
These days no matter the source, all news needs to be taken with a grain of salt for a couple of days at least. Even casualty reports from Syria. The Palestinians are experts at dragging the same fake dead children around to multiple sites and making it look like the Israelis bombed another school and American media still goes for it. No reason why others wouldn’t do this type of thing.
There have been horrific stories coming out and it is sad, but I’m telling myself to wait. How do I know that footage is from Syria today? I have to count on honest people who can verify or debunk. Even then, it has to be by weight of numbers of person(s) plural, not the loudest or most prominent and that takes time.
I “always trust content by Patterico” you are unimpeachably honest and trustworthy, but sometimes even with you now I wait to see if the news cycle has maybe left a stinkbomb in your inbox.
steveg (354706) — 10/14/2019 @ 3:19 pmNo offense meant, its because I need to coach myself constantly to wait, to “trust, but verify” with everyone because I’ve taken the bait too many times
By intentionally broadcasting a hoax that could be (and was) easily exposed in an hour or so?
Dave (1bb933) — 10/14/2019 @ 3:34 pm“By intentionally broadcasting a hoax that could be (and was) easily exposed in an hour or so?”
No one has ever accused the people that broadcast a hoax, or those who enthusiastically wolf it down, of being members of Mensa.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 10/14/2019 @ 3:38 pmdoesn’t matter the correction long outpaces the story,
narciso (d1f714) — 10/14/2019 @ 3:38 pmfull pillow selection,
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/kyle-drennen/2019/10/14/nets-cheer-biden-fighting-back-after-trump-weaponized-hunters-shady
narciso (d1f714) — 10/14/2019 @ 3:40 pm@55. OT but FYI, today’s Biden Gaffe:
“Nobody in my family will have an office in the White House…” – Joe Biden.
Except your wife, eh, Joe?
Idiot.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/14/2019 @ 3:43 pmYou don’t understand what I mean by “how it happens” and I can’t explain it any better than I have, so we’re doomed to talk past each other. All you did was elaborate on the notion that the people responsible are underpaid and inexperienced and overworked. It’s not an explanation of how it happened, in the sense I mean it.
It’s as if we sent the aide to the grocery store to get a loaf of bread and he came back with a large brisket that turned out to be laced with cyanide. “How did this happen?” one might ask. “Well, the aide is a minimum wage person with little experience” is a totally inadequate response that misses the point of the question no really, though, how the hell did this happen?
But you clearly don’t get what I’m getting at and don’t seem like you’re going to, so don’t bother responding unless you feel this example gave you an epiphany that will cause you to give an answer substantially different from the intern answer you keep repeating in different words.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/14/2019 @ 3:50 pmInexcusable gaffe; nobody who said something like that could possibly be President, I’ve been brain dead for the last three years by the way what did I miss
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/14/2019 @ 3:51 pmYou can give the ABC anchor a wee little wiggle room- very little: he does say ‘appearing to show’… but appearances can be deceiving.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/14/2019 @ 3:51 pmSlack editing is how it slipped past them. It does not explain how the concept “this is video that shows fighting in Syria” originated. I do not see how the origination derives from poor editing although this is the part where are not communicating well.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/14/2019 @ 3:54 pmI don’t think Mensa membership is required to realize that any sensational footage aired on a major network will be scrutinized.
For instance (in the ridiculous scenario you are suggesting where ABC broadcast footage that it knew to be false), other, competing news organizations would have attempted to obtain the same footage.
Also, since there is a nearly limitless quantity of real footage of guns firing and things blowing up in the middle east, it’s hard to see how something marginally more colorful and flashy would warrant the risks of intentional fraud and certain exposure.
Dave (1bb933) — 10/14/2019 @ 3:56 pm@57. Thought #50 responded to it; agree on running the source to ground but there’s an obvious big difference to a wise eye between a brisk and loaf of bread– that’s a disingenuous analogy. Video of night time firefights can appear quite similar; just as video clips of men on the moon can, as you noted.
You asked how it happens, I explained how it can get to air – and the fault lies chiefly w/t editors. If you’re questioning how it was sourced, that’s a valid question, which was referenced in my response at #38.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/14/2019 @ 4:07 pm“Investigative reporter” used to be a redundancy.
Now it’s an oxymoron.
mg (8cbc69) — 10/14/2019 @ 4:12 pm@61. I think Patterico’s questioning how it was sourced and who did it, who tossed it over the ABC transom– and given the ‘firehose flow’ of information these days- particularly over a holiday weekend, why wasn’t the ‘source’ triple-checked as it made it past the gatekeepers and on air. A place to start is w/the fella who ‘red flagged’ it in the first place: “Wojciech Pwcelwyck.”
Then get on McConnell’s azz about those civilian machine gun parties in Kentucky.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/14/2019 @ 4:27 pmContinuing lack of communication, made worse by you calling something I said “disingenuous.” Let’s not speak for a while.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/14/2019 @ 4:29 pmOne can picture sinister motives for this I suppose; Cheney comes to mind; plants a story in the NYT then goes on MTP and quotes his own planted piece as a source back in the day.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/14/2019 @ 4:37 pmNo one has ever accused the people that broadcast a hoax, or those who enthusiastically wolf it down, of being members of Mensa
Based on my brief experience with Mensa, I would say it’s actually the opposite.
Kishnevi (46054d) — 10/14/2019 @ 5:01 pmThat is a good point. I will remember it the next time Trump lies or says something crude/mean.
DRJ (15874d) — 10/14/2019 @ 5:09 pm“ Based on my brief experience with Mensa, I would say it’s actually the opposite.”
lol… did you get the boot?
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 10/14/2019 @ 5:22 pmIve already spelled out my connection to playa giron, several (redacted) timesm
narciso (d1f714) — 10/14/2019 @ 5:25 pm@68.Yeah, but you know, if Biden were to shout, say- ‘hey you folks, get off my lawn!!’- it would sound truly mean; whereas if Trump were to bark, “hey you, Acosta, get off my 14th green!!” — it would sound so stupid as to be funny.
You’d think by now somebody would have figured out how to play him with his own game and beat him at it.
Oh Oprah– if only you’d run.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/14/2019 @ 5:26 pmHow was this discovered? I could understand if someone who participated in the shoot recognized the video and questioned it, or maybe someone who had seen the video. Otherwise, it seems to have been discovered very quickly — which means either someone is very quick/lucky or someone was watching for this.
There are tweets that this video may be the one used. It is labeled “Knob Creek night shoot” so if the video came from this (via an intern), it was extremely careless and/or wasn’t a mistake. My guess is someone sent it to ABC and, if so, ABC should reveal that. Sources that do things like this don’t get anonymity.
DRJ (15874d) — 10/14/2019 @ 5:32 pmlol… did you get the boot
It started because my SAT scores were extremely high (770 Math, 800 Verbal)* I was offered through my school the chance in 12th grade to join Mensa without taking their membership test. I joined, attended a few meetings, and fled. They were all supernerdy, obsessed with trivial topics on which they had intricate theories and loads of unscientific nonsense. It was too much for me…and I’m an aspie!
That was over 40 years ago, of course. But I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those 9/11 truther theories, etc etc were created by Mensans, and eagerly latched onto by others.
*To put that in perspective, several of my fellow students scored better than me. IIRC three of them got perfect scores on both the Math and Verbal. And I wasn’t close to being valedictorian. Proficiency in taking multiple choice tests…which is all the SAT was back then…does not correlate to classroom success. Or much else in the real world.
BTW, my classmates who offered the same opportunity to join Mensa all ended up having a similar reaction.
Kishnevi (46054d) — 10/14/2019 @ 5:52 pmbut there could be dark forces behind this. Forces even darker — if you Trump fans can imagine this — than ABC News.
Someone just called in to ABC to provide context:
Munroe (53beca) — 10/14/2019 @ 5:56 pm“My name’s Ahmed. I’m in Euleff, Syria, and a little over an hour ago I heard a loud explosion and a big piece of what appeared to be metal landed on my property. It’s lying there now and there are a lot of people here, obviously, looking at it. And they believe that it’s one of Babba Booey’s teeth.”
@72. Good find, DRJ. Based on experience, somebody likely tossed this in over the transom to ABC– or possibly other news outlets as well–labeled as something else- and under deadline over the holiday weekend some young ABC staffer rushed and edited the ‘firefight’ video in w/t v/o for fit, rushed it through editing for the the package to make air for the satellite feed. Or some one was just pissed they got tagged to work over a holiday weekend and edited some night time ‘firefight’ visuals into the package to get it done– the copy the anchor reads, ‘–appearing to show–‘ has a hint of hesitance to it for network news. But how it was sourced and tagged when sent to them would be quite revealing. ABC S&P will look into it.
Recall one time over a weekend some young editor, who was doing Saturday night work on a video promo master, had brought some porn in to watch on another monitor while editing– and he accidently did a line cross and some of it got duped on to the wrong tape. When we reviewed the master before it went out for duplication, we luckily caught it.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/14/2019 @ 6:04 pmABC knows where they got the footage from. If they won’t tell us, then screw them. We don’t owe them anything, let alone the benefit of the doubt.
Of course the daffodil and his butt gerbils will grasp at the #FakeNews straw. That’s what they do. Point at motes to deflect from his beams. It doesn’t mean that it’s anything more than opportunism. Laughing at someone who tripped and fell. It doesn’t mean they did the tripping.
nk (dbc370) — 10/14/2019 @ 6:05 pm“ I was offered through my school the chance in 12th grade to join Mensa without taking their membership test. I joined, attended a few meetings, and fled.”
It sounds like you made the right choice! I have known a few members… one I still call a good friend. The others (less than a half dozen) were usually insufferable.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 10/14/2019 @ 6:06 pm70… I’ll have to search for it, narciso, I don’t recall reading it.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 10/14/2019 @ 6:10 pmIt will be interesting to see how the story unfolds.
If the source was inside ABC I would expect them to leave it at mistake. Saying more doesn’t help them.
If the source was outside ABC I would expect them to elaborate on that since there is some upside for them.
Frosty, Fp (f27e97) — 10/14/2019 @ 6:13 pm@76. Well, they have to follow corporate procedure w/this as they run it to ground– it could likely cost some grunt[s] their gig[s]– but the egg-on-the-face PR issue will linger for a while and make for more anti-media chatter in the Twitterverse.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/14/2019 @ 6:22 pmI can’t help remembering the San Francisco airport Korean plane crash with the anchorette reporting that “the NTSB has confirmed” that the names of the crew were Captain Sum Tin Wong, Wei Tu Lo, Ho Lee Fuk, and Bang Ding Ow. In the end, we got some confused story about some intern, but no motive that I understood, and my guess still that it was some kind of petty internal feud, with either the lady or the producer as the target.
nk (dbc370) — 10/14/2019 @ 6:35 pm@81. The real loser in this is likely that civilian Knob Creek, KY., ‘machinegunfest’ nestled in McConnell Country. Says a lot about why he stalls on moving any gun legislation. Never seen or heard of it before and likely most Americans haven’t either– now they have and it could pass for night maneuvers by the Marines at Camp Pendleton… or a Syria firefight— well, almost.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/14/2019 @ 6:50 pm@27 I’ll make is very plain. If I disagree with something Patterico says, I will say so specifically. If i make a generalization – its a generalization. Yes, I know its hard to understand.
rcocean (1a839e) — 10/14/2019 @ 6:51 pm82
Kishnevi (573b0b) — 10/14/2019 @ 6:58 pmThe entity most in peril may end up being
https://www.knobcreek.com/
@84. LOL ‘home on the range’– now there’s good mixer for a machinegunfest!
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/14/2019 @ 7:03 pmMachine guns were as legal as door knobs until 1934. Then they became as legal as alcohol if you registered them, paid the $200 federal tax, and your local laws allowed them. Until 1986, when the old vintages that you had registered remained legal but the post-1986 barrels became reserved for law enforcement and military only.
nk (dbc370) — 10/14/2019 @ 7:09 pm@86. See #13, read their description then watch their video–gasoline must be darn cheap in Knob Creek, KY.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/14/2019 @ 7:27 pmIts not news. The “news” outlets don’t do news…anymore. They set a narrative. Plan a narrative, release the narrative, refine the narrative. Today the narrative is what ever makes Orange Man look inept, crooked, evil, smelly, or left handed.
Covington kids are down the memory hole already? Edited footage to support the notion that evil Catholic kids were harassing a Native American. They had a narrative to advance, so they lied.
NBC edited the Zimerman/Travon Martin 911 call. Had to set the narrative of racism
“Hands up don’t shoot” A total lie. People still believe it.
GWBusch and the forged National Guard document?
The entire Russian collusion thing? all a lie the media knowingly perpetuates to this day. There was never any strand of evidence to support the phony narrative. Not a single piece of evidence ever existed.
This phony tape? What ever it takes to make things seem worse than they are. You would think simple truth would suffice. But if the truth misses the narrative, lies must by implemented.
iowan2 (9c8856) — 10/14/2019 @ 7:32 pmRanges with machine guns are not news to me. We even have them in Illinois to “demonstrate samples” to “qualified” potential buyers.
And you may remember a post, here, maybe ten years back, about a tourist-trap range in Arizona where they allowed a nine-year girl to fire a machine gun and she shot the “instructor”. Fatally. My comments about that were not well-received by some of the then regulars here who compared machine guns to hiking trails and swimming pools.
nk (dbc370) — 10/14/2019 @ 7:36 pmGayle king thinks (no more like ruminates) rowan farrow has a grudge against lauer.
narciso (d1f714) — 10/14/2019 @ 7:38 pm@89. Yes. Recall it. Still, the intensity, caliber and numbers of weapons in use is a stunning visual. Edited the right way, it could pass for a combat firefight– oh, wait… 😉
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/14/2019 @ 7:43 pmOh, that was your point. I agree.
nk (dbc370) — 10/14/2019 @ 8:20 pmOmg that south park episode was insane.
narciso (d1f714) — 10/14/2019 @ 8:36 pm93… the China one, narciso?
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 10/14/2019 @ 8:52 pmYes, that one, the whole disney characters on the flight to china, mickey berating randy.
narciso (d1f714) — 10/14/2019 @ 9:27 pmVery funny stuff!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 10/14/2019 @ 9:41 pmIt is this side of absurd,
narciso (d1f714) — 10/14/2019 @ 9:44 pm@81. nk– you mean this one– the KTVU-TV, San Francisco report on the Asiana Flight 214 crew names?? :
https://www.eonline.com/ca/news/438793/ca
“How the hell could this have happened?!” — it made it through the package producers, the editors, the graphic people- doesn’t anybody read their copy anymore— all the way to air — at a Fox affiliate, KTVU-TV in San Francisco, no less?!?
The NTSB copped to the mistake- one of their interns ‘exceeded his authority’ and wrongly confirmed the names– but who wrote them?– Who was the source? Bart Simpson? Some dark cabal of vindictive Delta baggage handlers- or just that mischievous intern…
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/15/2019 @ 1:27 amThinking the video passed to ABC was from a Trumpian looking to put out disinformation to give an excuse for the fake news yell at any mention of what Trump did to Syria, although definitely possible, and more than passes the smell test, has no evidence of facts that I know of to give it any real credibility.
All we know for sure is ABC pushed out a video that got through a LOT of producers, editors, etc. about a pretty big headlining national story. Who the hell is vetting this stuff. This is just conjecture, but I think it fit the narrative everyone there wants, so they didn’t do the due diligence they should have. Hell, did they do ANY due diligence. They were apparently just trusting it was what they were told.
Interesting how the media makes a lot of errors about all things Trump, and virtually every single error goes against Trump. Is there any that went the other way?
EdB (c9777a) — 10/15/2019 @ 11:23 amAdderall-addled media explains a lot.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 10/15/2019 @ 11:56 amThe upside to this incident is now the gun debate can include the argument that it’s totally insane to think the 2nd amendment is a practical guard against a tyrannical government and did you see that Knob Creek footage that could almost pass for night maneuvers by the Marines at Camp Pendleton?
Frosty, Fp (f27e97) — 10/15/2019 @ 12:10 pmMystery solved.
But the interesting part is that Mr. Gokcek is a conspiracy nut, sort of a pale Turkish version of Alex Jones.
You would think that ABC News would’ve known that about the guy, like did some basic vetting to see if he was a reliable source. Instead, this episode is only a worse indictment of ABC News’ bias and general lack of diligence.
Paul Montagu (00daa1) — 10/15/2019 @ 6:24 pm