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The same could be said for radio, whether Orson Wells "Alien Invasion" broadcast or the multitude of April 1st jokes that got out of hand.
by dwd 6y ago
The same could be said for radio, whether Orson Wells "Alien Invasion" broadcast or the multitude of April 1st jokes that got out of hand.
- zymhan 6y agotl;dr don't rely on a single source
- Frost1x 6y agoBingo. Information should always be confirmed with at least one other (hopefully) independent source. The more sources, the merrier. If there aren't independent sources then don't jump to conclusions.
- akira2501 6y ago> The same could be said for radio Yes, except the FCC can forcefully suspend the operations of a radio station.
- logicprog 6y agoIs there any limit on their ability to do this?
- jrumbut 6y agoI think radio is probably a better source than Twitter as a whole, however they did air (still air?) Coast to Coast AM for decades. Though Art Bell said the show was "pure entertainment", anyone who tuned in without that context heard what sounded like a serious news talk program about aliens, crystal healing, reptilians, etc, etc.
- mc32 6y agoApparently the "fallout" was an exaggeration that Orson went along with because it gave him more publicity. From the Wikipedia: >"The supposed panic was so tiny as to be practically immeasurable on the night of the broadcast. ... Radio had siphoned off advertising revenue from print during the Depression, badly damaging the newspaper industry. So the papers seized the opportunity presented by Welles’ program to discredit radio as a source of news. The newspaper industry sensationalized the panic to prove to advertisers, and regulators, that radio management was irresponsible and not to be trusted." and "Welles later embraced the story as part of his personal myth. "Houses were emptying, churches were filling up; from Nashville to Minneapolis there was wailing in the streets and the rending of garments," he told Peter Bogdanovich years later." "CBS, too, found reports ultimately useful in promoting the strength of its influence. radio management was irresponsible and not to be trusted."
- sillysaurusx 6y agoThank you for sharing! My father used to tell me about this story. It's good to know it's apocryphal.
- krenzo 6y agoI loved to ask my grandmother about this because she recalled listening to the original broadcast. She said the station would take commercial breaks to interrupt the story, and they reminded listeners it was a fictitious broadcast when taking these breaks. She didn't believe that anyone could be fooled by it, at least not to the extent that was reported.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- williamtwild 6y agoOh how times don't really change.
- forgingahead 6y agoFascinating - thanks for sharing. Newspapers always play the same dirty tricks - they're doing the same now with the tech reporting because they're losing ad revenue to the tech companies.
- jeromegv 6y agoRadio Ambulante (NPR poscast) did an investigation on a similar story in Ecuador and it looks very much real. Not a myth. https://radioambulante.org/en/translation/the-extraterrestrials-translation https://radioambulante.org/en/translation/the-extraterrestri...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- camjohnson26 6y ago“Getting it Wrong” tells about this and other commonly believed media myths Getting It Wrong: Ten of the Greatest Misreported Stories in American Journalism https://www.amazon.com/dp/0520262093/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_y5teFbFREQ54M https://www.amazon.com/dp/0520262093/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_y5...
- hunter2_ 6y agoIt's not feasible for every trusted source of knowledge to have their own radio station, so the sources utilize existing stations, and consumers have no choice but to tune into those stations. It's perfectly feasible for every trusted source of knowledge to run a web server, and they actually do it, so it's sad that consumers don't connect directly to those servers and instead use middlemen.
- doingmyting 6y agoWhat prevents those trusted sources from being similarly hacked once they're now the main arbiters of important information? I'd even argue this may be more dangerous especially if tech and security are not their core focus.
- subpixel 6y agoPeople are not looking for trusted sources of knowledge. They are looking for entertainment.
- dwd 6y agoTrust is a loaded concept. What people trust is generally what fits their worldview which is increasingly reinforced by the filter bubbles provided by tech companies. The increasing polarisation and tribalism is made worse by the traditional network programming and now algorithms that present what the audience is comfortable to see and hear. I like using DDG because it doesn't filter, but at the same time I hate wading through utter crap and being the filter. Twitter for all its flaws is pretty good at giving everyone a voice so you can read something and then the criticisms without having to aggregate that from multiple sites.
- vertak 6y agoHow often do you need to be the filter? I’m genuinely curious because your experience is very different from my own, where I’ve been using DDG for years and I only notice poor results roughly 1 in 100 of the times, and then I’m just a quick “g! <search term>” away from slightly higher quality results.
- wyldfire 6y agoThere's a documentary I saw that explains that the hubbub around Welles' "War of the Worlds" broadcast was just to cover up the arrival of Red Lectroids.
- blaser-waffle 6y agoRegarding Red Lectroids, see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Buckaroo_Banzai_Across_the_8th_Dimension https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Buckaroo_Ban...
- easytiger 6y agoNot even remotely the same thing.
- mrmonkeyman 6y agoIt could not. How often was news radio hacked?