And it happened again!!!

Once again, the folks at Howard Stern have made it to LIVE, national media.

Posing as Steve Bartman, someone decided to answer all of the questions correctly and say 'Do you like Howard Stern's butcheeks?' to Dan Patrick.


CLASSIC.

This has happened at least 3 times that I know of in the past 4 years.

The most notorious was when the same guy called up posing as a coast guard during the Kennedy, Jr. plane crash.


So what was YOUR favorite Stern hoax?

 

Wow. Tonight's SportsCenter is not going well.

And why is Harold Reynolds wearing a Denver Nuggets suit?

 

No, rerailing.

From an article about that Peter Jennings prank call:

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/do/1999/oct/19/509443545.html

You may or may not recall Mr. Janks from a column written the Tuesday after John F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane plunged into the ocean off Martha's Vineyard. During a live report on ABC News, Peter Jennings took a call from someone claiming to be a Coast Guard representative. Jennings asked for the person's location, and the caller told Jennings that "Howard Stern thinks you're a (certain part of the male anatomy)."

Jennings, nonplussed, swiftly dismissed the caller and explained that it was a fan of Stern's who has a habit of interrupting crisis coverage on network and cable newscasts. It was Captain Janks, who has successfully infiltrated similar reports about the Columbine High School shootings, the death of Princess Diana, and just about every emergency report worthy of national coverage. He's broken through on "Larry King Live" several times, unnerving and confusing guests like Dick Van Dyke, Jimmy Stewart and Donny Osmond.

 

From another article:

http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/1999/cyb19990719.asp

The journalistic establishment condemns Matt Drudge for not double sourcing everything before going with it, but Saturday afternoon, as happens during live coverage of every major incident, two networks gullibly showcased reports from a Howard Stern fan pretending to be a Coast Guard officer.

While ABC’s Peter Jennings quickly realized his staff’s stupidity in putting the obvious phoney on the air, Dan Rather remained clueless. Even after the caller made clear he was a phoney by saying "Bababooey’s teeth" and Howard Stern were found "in the bay too," Rather repeated the caller’s supposed news about found wreckage, excitedly restating what he thought was a big CBS scoop: "But now, this just in, the Coast Guard Lieutenant says they have found debris." Rather stressed: "This puts the late information in a whole new context, a whole new perspective."

At about 11:10am ET on Saturday Rather assured viewers:
"It is deep within the professional id of CBS News to check and double check. Before we say something is a fact we like to have two independent sources. We’ll be clear with you as we go along what’s fact and what’s in the way of speculation."

Almost exactly two hours later, at about 1:15pm ET, Rather announced: "We now have Lieutenant Ed Gaynor of the United States Coast Guard, that they’ve now found some debris. Lieutenant, what can you tell us about this debris?" [yes, verb missing but that’s what he said.]
By phone "Gaynor" reported: "Some debris has been spotted and it is consistent with debris from a Saratoga, whether it’s John F. Kennedy’s Saratoga we don’t know. We also found Bababooey’s teeth were laying all in the bay too. And Howard Stern and Bababooey were all there." [Bababooey is a reference to the producer of Stern’s radio show.]
Rather, unfazed by how the caller had made abundantly clear he was phoney, plowed ahead with his big scoop: "Excuse me, when you said you have determined this debris is from a Piper Saratoga. [pause as Gaynor is barely heard as producer probably tunes him down] Well, I’m not sure that we heard correctly there Lieutenant Gaynor of the Coast Guard telling us, this is breaking information, I remind you again this is live television, we take in raw information, we do the best we can to be rock solid in stating fact. But now earlier there was a report of debris spotted, then there was a report from the FAA, Bob Orr said, well the FAA in effect steered us away from making any conclusions that the debris might or might not have anything to do with John Kennedy’s plane. But now, this just in, the Coast Guard Lieutenant says they have found debris. That debris, I believe that he said, we’ve lost him for the moment now, is consistent with a Piper Saratoga but that they couldn’t determine whether it was John F. Kennedy Junior’s Piper Saratoga aircraft. But this puts the late information in a whole new context, a whole new perspective."

Only after endorsing the caller’s information three times did Rather, maybe at the prompting of an amazed producer screaming in his ear, suggest that his big scoop was not so reliable: "I want to emphasize to you that this is raw information. Sometimes people call in and say things that aren’t true, sometimes you know cranks, that sort of thing happens. So let’s be very, very careful here with this information. One thought comes to mind. Was this actually the Coast Guard Lieutenant that we thought we were talking to? He jumped off that phone very pronto. Let’s go to Bob Orr in Washington."

Poor Bob Orr, who had to be embarrassed by his network’s star anchor, gently informed Rather what every viewer already realized:
"Dan, I’ve never understood why when you’re in a crisis type story and when people are hungry for good reliable information, I’ve never understood why pranksters think it’s funny to come on and just pass out erroneous information. I can tell you categorically Dan that last report was completely unfounded. I doubt that it was anybody from the Coast Guard..."

Memo to Orr: Maybe people think it’s fun to do because network producers are too dumb, lazy or incompetent to be able to determine who someone really is before throwing them onto live national television. These callers are quite an indictment of network incompetence. What other baseless facts get on the air that aren’t so obvious?

But Rather still couldn’t quite let go, leaving open the possibility the caller relayed accurate info even as he properly conceded responsibility for airing the call:
"I want to nail this point down. We do not know whether any debris of any significance has been sighted anywhere. On the phone, and we can be faulted for this, we’ll fault ourselves for it if there’s fault to be assessed, a person we believed to be a Coast Guard Lieutenant said that debris had been found and it was consistent with a Saratoga Piper. We now have fairly strong reason to believe that that was, however it happened, and fault ours if it did happen this way, that some person, who for whatever demented reason, would think that it was get through with a crank call like that [accurate transcript of this sentence as he said it]. But nonetheless, with live television, and handling in effect hot-leaded information, sometimes it happens."

"Fairly strong reason to believe" that it was a "crank call"? How much more evidence would it take to convince Rather?

An hour and a half later, at about 2:53pm ET, the same guy called up ABC News. By that time some real debris had actually been located. Peter Jennings asked: "Can you add anything to our knowledge of your search at the moment. We’ve just listened to one of your Coast Guard spokesman say you’ve identified more debris from an aircraft that would have belonged to Mr. Kennedy."
The caller, identified on-screen as "Lt. Ed Gainer [same name, different spelling, as on CBS], U.S. Coast Guard," got right to his gag: "That’s true. I’d like to know, do you know that Howard Stern thinks you’re a dick?"
An angry Jennings fumed: "Ah, I see. Just cut this gentleman off, will you. There’s always one like this. That happens in every crisis in America, someone representing the disc jockey Howard Stern manages to get through. It happens and it passes. So, just to review what we do know. We apologize to the Coast Guard that we’ve misrepresented someone as being a member of the Coast Guard, but that kind of call doesn’t surprise us anymore."

If ABC News knows these phoney calls are going to come in why don’t they stop putting them on the air? It would make Howard Stern a more responsible member of society if he condemned or at least stopped rewarding these callers by playing their phoney calls on his show, but that doesn’t excuse the networks for putting the landing of a scoop ahead of basic source verification.



God, talking heads are idiots.

 

My guess is that 'someone' calls them saying they have the number for Bartman or whomever and then ESPN decides to go ahead and call it.