(Wonkette) BBC, CNN Employ Magical Psychic News Announcers

[StrictlyRockers]

http://wonkette.com/politics/wtc/bbc-cnn-employ-magical-psychic-news-announcers-240564.php


BBC, CNN Employ Magical Psychic News Announcers
February 28, 2007

The Internets are buzzing with the bizarre story of BBC News reporting the 9/11 collapse of WTC7 before the building actually collapsed — all over a live shot of Ground Zero, with the 47-story highrise clearly in view and clearly standing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlFDd5Yjn3w&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwonkette%2Ecom%2Fpolitics%2Fwtc%2Fbbc%2Dcnn%2Demploy%2Dmagical%2Dpsychic%2Dnews%2Dannouncers%2D240564%2Ephp

What it “proves” is anyone’s guess, but it sure makes for hilarious viewing. But BBC reporters and anchors who maybe didn’t know the Manhattan skyline so well could possibly be forgiven for reporting an erroneous story and not knowing that great big highrise was World Trade Center 7 (otherwise known as the Salomon Brothers building). So why doesn’t the BBC simply say it got a story wrong and didn’t know any better? Stranger still, why did New York-based CNN anchor Aaron Brown do the same exact thing on September 11, 2001? We’ve got all the creepy video and much more to make your head asplode, after the jump.

First, the BBC video which has been posted and then deleted by Google and then posted and then deleted by YouTube again and again this week. The great big highrise next to the lady reporter’s head is WTC7:

This apparently aired some 20 minutes before WTC7 collapsed — supposedly from damage sustained when the Twin Towers collapsed or from the jet crashes. Whatever the “timestamp,” WTC7 is standing there throughout the news report of its collapse, so at minimum it’s an inaccurate story. Such things happen. And then, presumably right before the actual WTC7 begins to collapse, the signal from New York mysteriously degrades and vanishes.

Google is quickly deleting copies of the video, although it’s unknown who or what is requesting the clips be deleted. BBC presumably owns the copyright on the footage, and it seems BBC would want to collect and examine this footage — because the BBC now claims it lost all the 9/11 video. Because who would want to save video of the biggest news event of the last 40 years?
<...>

And now here’s Aaron Brown at CNN, also getting word from some unnamed source that WTC7 has collapsed or possibly is currently collapsing. Once again, WTC7 just stands there, mocking us:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1LetB0z8_o&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwonkette%2Ecom%2Fpolitics%2Fwtc%2Fbbc%2Dcnn%2Demploy%2Dmagical%2Dpsychic%2Dnews%2Dannouncers%2D240564%2Ephp

SR

[berni_mccoy]

1. That was AN HOUR before the collapse according to the poster.

If so, WTF?!?!

[StrictlyRockers]

2. WTF is exactly right.

I have no idea WTF. BBC issued a very unsatisfying response, denying they were in a conspiracy when no one has suggested that they were...

Here is the Beeb's response:
Richard Porter
27 Feb 07, 05:12 PM

The 9/11 conspiracy theories are pretty well known by now. The BBC addressed them earlier this month with a documentary, The Conspiracy Files, shown within the UK.

Until now, I don't think we've been accused of being part of the conspiracy. But now some websites are using news footage from BBC World on September 11th 2001 to suggest we were actively participating in some sort of attempt to manipulate the audience. As a result, we're now getting lots of emails asking us to clarify our position. So here goes:

1. We're not part of a conspiracy. Nobody told us what to say or do on September 11th. We didn't get told in advance that buildings were going to fall down. We didn't receive press releases or scripts in advance of events happening.

2. In the chaos and confusion of the day, I'm quite sure we said things which turned out to be untrue or inaccurate - but at the time were based on the best information we had. We did what we always did - sourced our reports, used qualifying words like "apparently" or "it's reported" or "we're hearing" and constantly tried to check and double check the information we were receiving.

3. Our reporter Jane Standley was in New York on the day of the attacks, and like everyone who was there, has the events seared on her mind. I've spoken to her today and unsurprisingly, she doesn't remember minute-by-minute what she said or did - like everybody else that day she was trying to make sense of what she was seeing; what she was being told; and what was being told to her by colleagues in London who were monitoring feeds and wires services.

4. We no longer have the original tapes of our 9/11 coverage (for reasons of cock-up, not conspiracy). So if someone has got a recording of our output, I'd love to get hold of it. We do have the tapes for our sister channel News 24, but they don't help clear up the issue one way or another.

5. If we reported the building had collapsed before it had done so, it would have been an error - no more than that. As one of the comments on You Tube says today "so the guy in the studio didn't quite know what was going on? Woah, that totally proves conspiracy... "

Richard Porter is head of news, BBC World.

My goodness, that certainly was a less than satisfying response to our questions about this.

ALL THIS RESPONSE DOES IS RAISE MORE QUESTIONS!

"How to Exacerbate a Public Relations Crisis"

Porter's phillipic is curious. It was well within his power to view the suspect footage and act to defuse the controversy in a calm, factual way. One might imagine something along these lines:

"Well, yeah it looks funny, at first sight, seeing our Jane talking about the collapse with the building still standing behind her. Shucks. But consider please the bad damage to WTC 7! The authorities were expecting it to come down at some point that evening or the next day. The streets were cleared in anticipation. So somehow a report was prepared and honestly, we don't really remember who we got it from. And then it ended up broadcast prematurely. Oops, we regret this, but things like that do happen, it was a chaotic day…"

Child's play.

Instead, Porter chooses to identify purveyors of "conspiracy theory" as the enemy, and draws a direct link to the BBC's recent documentary attack on 9/11 skepticism, as though this is in any way relevant to what BBC World News itself broadcast on September 11th.

He preemptively avers that the BBC has been accused of belonging to "a conspiracy" - which of course the Standley clip does not show, and which no reasonable person would claim on the basis of the clip.

Then he pulls out two unconfirmable claims that may sound all-too familiar: No one remembers exactly what was reported then. And all archived video of the day's broadcasts has been lost.

There would be groans from the gallery, but normally these two claims amount to trump cards. Except for a decisive difference in this case: the footage is already circulating openly on the Web, where everyone can see it.

Did Porter not view the widely-available video of his network's advance reports of the WTC 7 collapse, before writing his response? This would amount to an embarrassing lack of due diligence for a news director – in fact, an arrogance worthy of the Soviet media.

Or did Porter watch the segment? In that case, "we forgot" and "we lost our records" are not valid excuses. (Although they seem to be contagious ones: note the message below from archive.org, explaining why the video suddenly went off-line yesterday.)

Finally, note the careful phrasing of Porter's first item: "We didn't receive press releases or scripts in advance of events happening." Of course, information also comes in forms other than press releases and scripts. So let's repeat the relevant question to Porter:

Did the BBC get information that WTC 7 had collapsed on 9/11, before it actually did collapse? Or was it a guess that was "in error" when first reported, but magically turned out to be true just five minutes later?

Where did the information come from, Mr. Porter?

[Tuesday_Morning]

20. the comments at the bbc website are great

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/02/part_of_the_conspiracy.html#commentsanchor

They're really taking them to task about this.

[rzemanfl]

3. I clearly remember CNN announcing the building "was about to

collapse" before it did.

[StrictlyRockers]

4. You are correct, sir.

And wonkette covers that. Here is the video of CNN's magic ability to predict the complete collapse of a 47-story, steel frame skyscraper that had been hit by no planes and that had only had a couple of small fires burning inside.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1LetB0z8_o&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwonkette%2Ecom%2Fpolitics%2Fwtc%2Fbbc%2Dcnn%2Demploy%2Dmagical%2Dpsychic%2Dnews%2Dannouncers%2D240564%2Ephp

SR

[sabbat hunter]

17. it had been

WTC 7 was heavily damaged by falling debris from the collapse of WTC 1 and 2. additionally there were more than "a couple of small fires" inside.


additionally i must ask why you keep starting new threads on the same topic. makes it very hard to keep straight of what is going on in each one. as a suggestion you should keep it to one thread.

[rzemanfl]

31. Thank you. That is exactly the way I remember it. n/t

[StrictlyRockers]

5. The day after this discovery was made, they pulled all the videos from the archive...hmmm...

The BBC 23 minute gap was discovered by a poster on www.911blogger.com named 911veritas. He made this discovery by poring over the video archives from that day. The archives had been up for weeks at this site, www.archive.com. More specifically, right here:
http://www.911blogger.com/node/6391#comment
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=co...ort=-publicdate

The day after 911veritas used that archive to make the video exposing the BBC's magic ability to predict the future, all of the videos in the archive were suddenly removed.

The day the videos were taken down, I called the archive office in San Francisco personally to ask them about it. I spoke with a person who identified themselves as Paul Hickman. S/he (voice indeterminate) told me that the videos should not have been up because they were not in the right format. I asked a few more questions then thanked them for their time and told them I would send an email with similar questions and hope for a written response as well.

After the conversation, I immediately posted what I had found out to the site www.911Blogger.com . That site is where the BBC story was first broken, by a poster named 911veritas.

Paul Hickman subsequently sent me this email response explaining why all of the archived videos had been taken down.

"Thank you for contacting us about this. The files that were pulled were not designed for download, and were not available for that purpose.
They were in streaming format for a reason. Until we can figure out how to plug those holes, we have to take the information off-line.

Our TV Archive is a project that is currently for testing purposes only.
We have pulled the footage because it was not yet ready for public viewing.

Paul Forrest Hickman
Office Manager
Internet Archive
www.archive.org

It is, however, just a coincidence that the videos were taken down the day after we used them to uncover evidence of an insider conspiracy on 9/11. It is not evidence that we have scared them badly.

Oh well. Time to move along, I suppose. Nothing to see here.

Literally.

SR

As a side note, "Paul" had a very feminine sounding voice. I noted this in my blog entry after the call. When s/he told me the name "Paul" I thought I had misheard, and asked "Paula?". S/he responded in a tone that sounded as if s/he understood, or was used to the question, and corrected me, "Paul".

[Tin Man]

6. To the dungeon!

You know the rules - quit posting 911 threads in the GD forum.

[StrictlyRockers]

8. This story is hitting the mainstream.

Sooner or later that rule should be relaxed so that DUers are not kept in the dark about breaking news stories like this.

This story has been on the front page of every almost every political blog on the net. Are DUers determined to be kept totally out of the loop on this subject?

A whole lot of people think this is a very big deal. I do, too.

SR

[Tin Man]

9. You're welcome to discuss this story in the September 11 forum

[StrictlyRockers]

12. You're welcome to wake up and smell the coffee.

This is huge evidence of...well, something!

And, in my humble opinion, it deserves to be discussed by the wider DU community.

Or would you rather not have a clue what everyone else is going to be talking about around the water cooler?

SR

[JackRiddler]

15. You're welcome to join the Junior Inquisition Society

Please cite the DU rule that says facts about 9/11 cannot be reported on GD - and in this case, no one disputes the fact that BBC reported on WTC 7 collapse while building still stood in background.

[greyl]

26. "Magical Psychic News Announcers" is not a factual statement.

It's an absolutely stupid statement.
Are magical powers or leaked inside information the only explanation you can think of for the facts of someone getting shot in the head turning into that someone was shot in the head and died? If someone reported that the victim had died 20 minutes before they actually did, would you put on your tinfoil hat for that story, too?

This situation is really unbelievably pathetic.
The last gurgling breaths of the so-called 9/11 Truth Movement.

[JackRiddler]

27. Your selective inability to understand irony ("magical powers")

or its relation to facts is not of interest to me.

[greyl]

28. You aren't reading for comprehension.

I understand the hyperbole perfectly. Hyperbole is not fact, it is emotion laden spin designed to sway opinion in lieu of statements of fact. Like an Axxe commercial implying that women will swarm you when you spray some on.
So, back to the point. The framing of the story is non-factual. I've seen you point out errors like this on other OP's, so I'm confident that if you can avoid Confirmation Bias, you'll be able to apprehend my point.

[Joe Chi Minh]

38. You miss the point. The story is factual to the point of being

elementary. Nobody needs to be told what happened. It was perfectly reasonable for the poster to frame a staritical post. Your postamounts to gross pedantry. That is not a value judgment, It is a fact.

[greyl]

42. No, you misunderstand. The BBC isn't denying facts concerning this story, nor am I.

What I'm denying is the false choice of "they were either psychic or were told secret information".
If you missed it, that's what the OPer is trying to set up.

[Joe Chi Minh]

47. No, the psychic postulation was intended satirically.

[greyl]

25. That appears to me imortant to some people than the veracity of their spin. nt

[FourScore]

10. This is not conspiracy stuff.

A major skyrise building in NY collapsed and the reporters are reporting on it BEFORE it happens. It's called "accuracy in reporting" and, you gotta admit, this ain't very accurate. She's standing there with the friggin' building right behind her while she says it collapsed. Same with Aaron Brown.

So how does one determine that a building will collapse?
Who determined it that day?
Why were the reporters saying it had when it clearly hadn't?
Why do they want to scrub the internet of the existing videos?
AND HOW THE HELL DOES THE BBC LOSEALL THEIR MATERIAL FROM 9/11???

Why is it that every time someone has legitimat questions surrounding 9/11, they are accused of conspiracy crap?

Geez.

[redacted]

32. Because labels are used to silence debate. For a detailed examination of this

effect, listen to last week's 'Big Picture" podcast (Hour 3) at the Financial Sense Online website.

It's fascinating. There's an extensive and well-researched report from an expert who has read over 70 books on Nazi Germany on how debate was silenced pre-WWII by the use of labels for individuals, groups, and concepts.

And this report appears on a website managed by commentators who have been known to advance some very conservative economic theories where strong evidence or other factors made those explanations appropriate. I think they're very credible, and their argument about labels and labeling is strong.

[Grateful for Hope]

36. This is exactly what happens in this forum n/t

[Joe Chi Minh]

39. The references we hear to conspiracy theories are, in effect, SELF-ACCUSATIONS.

That is really what the guilty parties do not wish to acknowledge. They are accusations; self-accusations. They are not theories.

When the authorities obstinately refuse to properly investigate and sometimes even conceal empirical evidence, this cannot BUT be interpreted as self-accusation. A guilty plea. Before the formal utterance of any theory is even possible.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

19. To the dungeon. This thread in the few minutes it was up at GD had 13 recommendations.

The day before last, another thread that was posted in GD regarding this BBC story had 47 recommendations in the short time it was there, it made the Greatest Page.

People in GD want this info, especially since this is breaking news that they might not have heard about.

[Norrin Radd]

50. "Domo arigato,"

You know the rest of the song.

[SpiralHawk]

7. MIHOP

[StrictlyRockers]

11. Look at the chimp's expression in that first picture.

Man, I'd like to know what is going through his mind. When he has that facial expression...what is he thinking? He is not thinking about pet goats. And he is not acting like the leader of a country under attack.

He is the chimp that walks like a man.

SR

[vincent_vega_lives]

40. "He is the chimp that walks like a man"

You know, A LOT of people think GWB is a terrible president. Including myself. I respect religious people but I don't especially trust GWB's type of religion or agree with his point of view on things...to say the least.

I think he is a stammering mess, and can't piece together a coherent sentence. I think he has a lot of personality traits that make him a poor leader (surrounds himself with yes-men, refuses to change his mind when challenged).

But I find this characterization of him, a fellow human being, as a sort of 'subhuman' because one hates his world view as abhorrent. I realize it seems to be very popular around here and all, but frankly I am disgusted by it, and totally lowers discourse to a level fitting that of the lowest of the right.

I realize you're far from the only one here...but that statement just touched a nerve.

[Tuesday_Morning]

13. off to the dungeon

:eyes:

So Wonkette can say this front and center but we can't...

[SpiralHawk]

14. This is legitimate GD material

I protest.

[FourScore]

16. This is ridiculous.

I don't mind the 9/11 forum so much. But I do think it is wrong that none of it even has a chance of making it to the greatest page because we cannot rec down here. That's not right.

Also, this is as much about mainstream news reporting on that day as anything else.

I usually agree with the mods, but this time I think they are making an error in judgement, IMHO.

[rman]

18. Someone at the BBC responsible for checking facts did not do his/her job

This is the same BBC that has a policy of verifying with two independent sources if at all possible. And checking whether or not WTC7 had collapsed would have been one of the more trivial things to do. But apparently this time they decided to just take someone's word for it.

[jberryhill]

21. They check facts on live news reports?

How does one do that?

[Bryan Sacks]

22. Before they go live, usually

You see, the funny thing about a building collapsing is, once it happens and you've got it confirmed, you don't have to worry about the story changing much.

So spare me the "rush for the scoop" excuse. I know all about it. It may explain this, but it does not excuse it.

[greyl]

24. They were live all day.

So spare me the "rush for the scoop" excuse. I know all about it. It may explain this, but it does not excuse it.

It may explain it? Well well, you've progressed measurably in 2 days. Of course it explains it. You have to know that it's a parsimonious explanation. Haven't you ever seen a referee call a touchdown only to have it retracted seconds later?
There's no excuse for this feeding frenzy by the so-called Truth Movement over this ultimately meaningless morsel, but there is an explanation. It's contrary to those who have faith in controlled demolition of WTC7.

[Bryan Sacks]

29. faulty comparisons your specialty. an 'F' for analogical reasoning n/t

[greyl]

30. Nope. A hectic and confusing live event is apt to spawn erroneous reporting.

The analogy fits tightly.
Then there's the one about someone getting shot in the head turning into that someone was shot in head and killed.

Nevertheless, like you tentatively admitted yourself, the "rush for the scoop" explains this.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

35. Are you kidding me?

"Haven't you ever seen a referee call a touchdown only to have it retracted seconds later?"

The pass and catch has occurred already. So, could you please expand on your analogy and its relevance to reporting a standing building has fallen -- when in fact no such event (pass-and-catch?) has yet transpired?

[BuyingThyme]

33. That's a keeper.

[jberryhill]

41. Did you know there were quite a few survivors from the Hindenberg?

Why did the live report suggest they were all dead?

Oh, the humanity!

Bad fact checking.

[BuyingThyme]

45. Oh, wait, you're supposed to say they don't do fact checking.

You guys sure have trouble keeping up with your silliness.

[wildbilln864]

23. kick!

:hi:

[Contrite]

34. Wonkette is TRES naive . . . or TRES stupid.

Alex almost completely overlooks the fact that the building not only was reported to have collapsed while STILL standing, but that it actually then DID collapse.

What does she make of THIS coincidence?

Did she not notice that no OTHER buildings were falsely reported and CONFIRMED to have collapsed...let alone one that actually then DID???

[Joe Chi Minh]

37. I wonder if there would be a university course anywhere

in prophetic news announcement?

[jberryhill]

43. You know they write obituaries for celebrities before they die...

Major publications keep obituary files on living people, so they can get those "retrospective" editions out quickly. A few years ago, there was a goof when I-forget-which-paper had a URL to its Ronald Reagan death coverage leaked.

In your university course, students can write stories about:

Massive Earthquake Devastates San Francisco

Dick Cheney Suffers Heart Attack (see ischeneydeadyet.com)

Bus Plunge In South America Kills Dozens

World's Oldest Person Dies

The last headline is one of my favorites. Every three or four months there is a headline at Yahoo to that effect. The first few times I noticed it, I thought, "Hey, didn't that happen a couple of months ago."

The thing about headlines like this is that they are "things that are expected to happen". Lower Manhattan was being evacuated, and non-emergency personnel were being sent out and only emergency personnel were being sent in. The only way reporters uptown were getting information was from people coming out of the area. Firefighters were telling people all afternoon to get away from WTC 7 because they believed it was in danger of collapsing. You get a bunch of people who've seen two buildings collapse already, and you tell them another one looks like it might do the same, and it is not rocket science to figure out that someone is going to say it "is collapsing" which, by the time someone gets word of that they know that "is collapsing" was said by someone a while ago, isn't familiar with the buildings, and knows that "is collapsing" was said before they heard it, then whaddya think they might say after hearing it?

[The Lone Groover]

44. Have you ever seen such wriggling? nt

[Joe Chi Minh]

48. Never say die! Bomb the villages to save them,

[CJCRANE]

46. "Who you gonna believe - the BBC

or your lying eyes?"

:shrug:

[BuyingThyme]

49. Someday somebody will discover a tape of a guy admitting

that the building was pulled. He might even explain why.