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NYT: The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!

By Doug Hanchard | March 15, 2010, 8:05am PDT

Summary

The New York Times reports Georgian people panicked in the country during a broadcast of a satire that suggested a Russian invasion was occurring.

Topics

Radio, Television Station, Georgia, Russian, Media, TVs, Tv & Home Theater, Personal Technology, Home Entertainment, Doug Hanchard

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David Gewirtz

David Gewirtz
As a child, David Gewirtz discovered he was a geek sometime during the middle of the Johnson administration. He is the author of How To Save Jobs: Reinventing Business, Reinvigorating Work, and Reawakening the American Dream and Where Have All The Emails Gone? How Something as Seemingly Benign as White House Email Can Have Freaky National Security Consequences.

He is the executive director of the U.S. Strategic Perspective Institute, founder of the ZATZ technical magazines, a CNN contributor, and the cyberterrorism advisor for the International Association for Counterterrorism and Security Professionals.

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The New York Times reports Georgian people panicked during a broadcast of a satire that suggested a Russian invasion was occurring.

MOSCOW - Some people placed emergency calls reporting heart attacks, others rushed in a panic to buy bread and residents of one border village staggered from their homes and dashed for safety - all after a television station in Georgia broadcast a mock documentary on Saturday night that pretended to report on a Russian invasion of the country.

A key reason people believe it was real became obvious:

Producers at the Imedi television station taped the episode in the studio normally used for the evening news broadcast, using an anchor familiar to the audience, and then broadcast the show at 8 p.m. Saturday with an initial disclaimer that many viewers apparently missed.

Oops. And like that famous radio broadcast War of the Worlds, October 30th, 1938 it too which created some panic in parts of the United States, which and mirrors what occured in Georgia. Mobile - Cell phone service apparently crashed from overload. The New York Time article highlights Imedi Television and how close the H.G. Wells production was followed (albeit perhaps not intentionally) War of the Worlds techniques such as using real TV footage of archived Russian Air Force bombers in the air compared to using simulated radio news bulletins that were used as part of the War of the World’s radio production.

Key to the trigger of the panic - many people MISSED the disclaimer:

The television station clearly identified the program as imaginary before the broadcast began. But viewers who tuned in later would have had to rely on clues. The fighting in the video was taking place in the summer, for example, not in March. Some images were from the 2008 war.

Perhaps Imedi Television should have tried a comedy instead which was as is the titled for this article, a story, originally done in 1966 starring Alan Arkin and Carl Reiner. Georgia and Russia had several outbreaks of civil war in the past.

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Disclosure

Doug Hanchard

http://government.zdnet.com/?page_id=5774

Biography

Doug Hanchard

Doug is the principal of Rapid Response Consulting, an advisory group that integrates ICT solutions. He has worked at some of the largest telecommunications firms in Canada, including Bell Canada, Telus and AT&T and is a guest lecturer for several universities and associations. He serves on several advisory boards in Canada and the United States.

Starting with a new national ISP in 1993 in sales, positioning internet access, web sites and network services began the path of telecommunications technologies from the early Bulletin Board Services (BBS) to the first web pages for commercial clients.

Became the National Data Network Service Manager for Frame Relay and Internet access for AccTel Enterprises which was acquired (after 3 mergers already) by AT&T Canada. Interested in how marketing could expand service availability, he moved to Telus to become the Frame Relay / ATM Product Manager and expanded the network across Canada. In 2002 he went to Bell Canada becoming a Solution Architect to get back to his passion for technology working with enterprise clients. In 2006, became the Director of R&D and Senior Solution Architect for Bell Canada Security Solutions Inc, developing I.P. based physical and logical security platforms and ICT services.

This position created new commercial concepts such as Crisis and Disaster technology solutions required for emergency use after an event occurred. He designed interoperable technologies and application combinations allowing any to any I.P. service through landline, broadband, satellite and wireless technologies to be deployed anywhere

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Talkback Most Recent of 11 Talkback(s)

  • RE: NYT: The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!
    Funny stuff! They must be dumb as a sack of hammers to do
    something like this in a former Soviet country.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    bobfastner
    03/15/2010 09:11 AM
  • it was a tad bizarre
    Can you imagine if that was pulled off here in the U.S. in this day and age?

    Conspiracy enthusiast would have a field day happy

    Thanks for writing.
    Doug
    ZDNet Gravatar
    doug.hanchard@...
    03/15/2010 09:45 AM
  • For the **ignorant** ones: USA invaded far more countries than USSR
    including invading the poor Haiti countless times, supporting pro-Pentagon (hence "liberal" and "democratic") dictatorship there during decades, and recently supporting corrupt local regimes which brought nothing but chaos to the country. Haitians lived in ruin even before the earthquake.

    Not to say at any rate that USSR was "saint" (it supported some bloody regimes in Africa), but in sheer quantity you just can not compare how bad USA were (and are in some places) in the sense of oppression to the world to what USSR did.

    But, of course, Americans are not told about it on TV and not taught about it in schools.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    denisrs
    03/15/2010 03:43 PM
  • and
    So?
    ZDNet Gravatar
    current user
    03/15/2010 07:23 PM
  • RE: NYT: The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!
    If CNN did a spoof of a 9-11 type incident no one would laugh!
    ZDNet Gravatar
    becabill
    03/15/2010 09:42 AM
  • It would spell disaster - see previous comment
    Agree.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    doug.hanchard@...
    03/15/2010 09:46 AM
  • RE: NYT: The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!
    This reminds me of Reagan "The bombing starts in 5 minutes" while the microphones were live.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    cynic8
    03/15/2010 11:47 AM
  • RE: NYT: The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!
    Seems they can't do the crawls along the bottom or top of
    screen that my local stations use too much. A quick
    simple: 'dramatization' would have worked for those who
    can read.

    For those with MHZ network, the RT (russian television
    news) yesterday was just short of hilarious in their
    coverage, they wisely kept quiet on the "how could they
    be so stupid.." comment that was so obviously in the tips
    of their tongue.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    98clru
    03/15/2010 12:55 PM
  • RE: NYT: The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!
    Excuse me, Mr Hanchard, but exactly what language are you using when you write?

    This isn't English: "The New York Time article highlights how close the H.G. Wells production followed (albeit perhaps not intentionally) War of the Worlds techniques such as using real TV footage of archived Russian Air Force bombers in the air compared to using simulated radio news bulletins that were used as part of the War of the World?s radio production..."

    Nor is this: "Perhaps Imedi Television should have tried a comedy instead which was as is the titled for this article..."

    Please, take a break and come back when you learn how to write.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    michael.detroit@...
    03/16/2010 04:16 AM
  • RE: NYT: The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!
    Try searching for Waging the War of the Worlds. There have been at least 10 radio panics!
    ZDNet Gravatar
    johngos
    03/16/2010 04:26 AM
  • RE: NYT: The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!
    your worried about the Russians what about the **** it took over 60 years to stage another attack well from the people who brought you December 7th 1941 7:55 AM toyota honda think about that
    ZDNet Gravatar
    birdmanmacaw@...
    03/18/2010 03:32 PM

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