Couldn't resist the followup. NY Observer.
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CNN Blows!
by Alexandra Wolfe, Jake Brooks, Anna Jane Grossman, Beth Broome, Elon R. Green, Blair Golson and Shazia Ahmad
Early in October, thousands of frat boys e-mailed what looked like a CNN.com Web page to thousands more of their brothers, buddies and buddies’ girlfriends. It was an article about a new study that "Fellatio may significantly decrease the risk of breast cancer in women." The story, which carried an Associated Press byline, claimed that the Journal of Medicine had published the study and, in its online form, included supposed links to other CNN.com stories as well as the news organization’s copyright. But those who read the story realized it was a goof when they saw that among those quoted were Dr. B.J. Sooner, Dr. Len Lictepeen and Dr. Inserta Shafteer, who says in the piece: "Since the emergence of the research, I try to fellate at least once every other night to reduce my chances."
CNN didn’t think it was so funny, however, and neither did the A.P. And now the cable news network has sicced its real-life lawyers on the college student who created the virtual mess.
The spoof—or hoax, depending on how you look at it—originated on North Carolina State University’s Web space, the Wolf Web, where students can post links, sites and announcements. And not long after it posted, enraged A.P. and CNN representatives called the university’s legal-affairs office, charging intellectual-copyright infringement and threatening to sue the writer of the story and, should the circumstances merit it, the university itself.
CNN spokeswoman Edna Johnson said it was company policy not to comment on legal action or the consideration of legal action, but when The Transom called the network’s public-information line, a public-information representative named Kim stated flatly: "The page is fake, and they are pursuing legal action against the creators." When asked whether CNN planned to sue the school or the student, Kim said, "It depends on who actually created the site."
The author of the piece, N.C. State junior Brandon Williamson, said the idea came to him while sitting with friends in the school’s honors lounge. "It just popped into my head," he said. "I had no idea that the whole thing would blow up. I just thought it was a joke I was sending to my friends."
Mr. Williamson was mistaken. His false article was picked up as a real news story —credited to CNN—by a Chilean and a Croatian newspaper, and it’s still making the e-mail rounds here in the States. "I heard that in Korea, they had reported it on TV," said Mr. Williamson. "I was just surprised. I can understand people joking about it in an office, and I guess I think of that as an honor, that people find it funny. I mean, it’s nice—I guess they thought I was a good writer," he added.
University spokesman Tim Lucas told The Transom that after CNN and the Associated Press contacted N.C. State’s office of legal affairs, the school’s associate general counsel, David Drooz, contacted Mr. Williamson and told him, "It’s not a freedom-of-expression issue; it’s a copyright-infringement issue."
"What he did is, he attributed the research to N.C. State, when, in fact, obviously nothing like that has ever happened here," said Mr. Lucas, who added that Mr. Drooz also explained to Mr. Williamson that "you can’t use an A.P. and a CNN copyright, which the student unwittingly did."
Although Mr. Lucas said the article has since been modified and the logos and copyright changed, a simple Google search of "fellatio and breast cancer" will pull up numerous pages of links to the article with the CNN logo and A.P. copyright still intact. "I kind of wonder how long it’s going to take them to find out," Mr. Williamson said. He said that when he was first asked to take down the site, he was "a little angry and a little hurt, ’cause I felt like I was being pushed into taking it down." He added that Mr. Drooz always thought he was innocent. "From the beginning, [Mr. Drooz] thought that if I did take it to court, a parody defense was a really good defense. He thought that what I was doing was legal, but he also recognized that I’m a student and I really don’t have the resources to take it to court."
After all the legal threats, Mr. Williamson did admit to the school paper, the Technician: "I have no proof whatsoever that the two [fellatio and breast cancer] have anything to do with each other."
observer.com |
