NewsChannel 5 Fooled by Fake Fight Video
Reported by Scene's Brantley Hargrove:
On Monday, NewsChannel 5 aired a searing exposé (video above) on the pugilistic tendencies of McGavock High School students, featuring a video mined from the ever-reputable YouTube titled, “McGavock Fight.” Well, like anything you find on the internet, journalists—yes, even television journalists—would do well to consider the source suspect at the very least.
In fact, the video looked fake enough that several YouTube posters commented emphatically, “Fake Fake Fake...” and “fake as hell…”
For McGavock teacher Adrian Bahan, therein lies the rub—he knows both of the students shown in NewsChannel 5’s “shocking” video and can say with certainty that those flying fists are just phantom flailings thrown for shits and giggles (original video below). Perhaps the audible voice of a kid behind the camera saying, “Action,” should have been one clue for our well-groomed, suited counterparts, but, alas: At 2:45 into the report, as the staged video airs for the second time, investigative reporter Ben Hall says, “[Metro Schools Security Director] Rob Thompson believes gangs are responsible for this attack.”
“I’m frustrated by shoddy, lazy journalism,” Bahan fumed. “When stories like this come out, everyone pulls their kids out of McGavock and puts them in Goodpasture. If you watch that video, as a reporter, how can you not know that was staged?”
The gasp-inducing number of arrests Hall cites at Nashville’s largest high school when compared to other schools similarly chafes Bahan, who’d like to give him a lesson in arithmetic.
“We're the largest school in the state, so if you go by percentages instead of numbers, it's no story,” Bahan said. “You have to look at the number of fights relative to school population.”
But like any teacher worth his salt, Bahan turned a ridiculous journalistic blunder into a lesson.
“My students learned how the media can use bias to sensationalize a story.”
Comments
You have to do a search, but the story is still available on WeMakeUpTheNewsChannel5 website.
Posted 09/25/2008 at 01:24:08 PMNewschannel5 is a joke. They are at McGavock all the time. They'll get 30 miutes of footage, get one somewhat bad comment by someone who should never be on t.v., do a little copy and paste work, and make the school look bad. I hope this article exposes them for what they are. I could work at any school I'd like and I chose McGavock b/c we have the best kids and the best teachers in Nashville. If there that hurtin' for something bad to cover, they should go check out Phillip Fullmer. He's been robbing the University of TN for years.
Posted 09/26/2008 at 07:55:38 AM