Legendary Fail from KMIZ News: A Rebuttal

In which a reporter is incompetent, a policeman is ignorant, and I am pissed. (UPDATED with breaking failnews)

So there's this ABC affiliate in Missouri, KMIZ 17. And someone on its crack news team decided it would be a good idea to do a report on the potential danger to kids posed in some online games. Which--hey, that's a great idea, and I say that without the least little bit of sarcasm. Because there are some seriously sick people in this world, and you know damn well some of them are hip to the fact that kids play games on the Internet, and parents need to do their damn jobs as parents and watch what their kids are doing on the Internet to keep them safe.

Unfortunately, a combination of factors took a great idea and turned it into a steaming pile of sensationalist, alarmist garbage. [Mini-ETA: Article is gone, but unfortunately for KMIZ, the Internet does not forget things so easily. Video here, along with greatest use of annotations ever.]

What went wrong in this piece? Man, where the hell do you want me to start!?

Well...

If your kids play interactive video games, like the Nintendo Wii, be on the lookout. The Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force is warning of predators using games like, "Animal Crossing- City Folk," to target kids.

Let's start with the phrase "interactive video games," shall we?

Ms. Lapine, do you need a minute to figure out why using that phrase in this context foreshadows your blithering idiocy right there in the very first sentence of your article, or would you like me to explain it to you in the very small words you seem to require?

ALL VIDEO GAMES ARE INTERACTIVE. If it's not interactive, IT'S NOT A GAME. Forms of entertainment that aren't interactive are generally referred to as "movies," "music," "books," and so on. Did you perhaps mean "online video games?"

All right, all right, that's a pretty tiny nit to pick compared to the rest of the article, I'll give you that.

But then Lapine points her finger right at Animal Crossing: City Folk as an example of an online pedo haven. One would assume, and rightly so, that she's going to produce some facts to back that accusation up over the course of the article. She is, after all, reporting for a serious news program on a major network affiliate and not the National Enquirer or the Weekly World News; it's a given that serious journalists like she claims to be are going to back up a claim like, say, one that perverts are using Animal Crossing to bait kids with some carefully-researched factual information. Right?

Using the game you create a character and create your own town and house. When hooked up to the internet you can talk to anyone across the country.

Okay.

The first sentence is correct. The second, while technically also correct, leaves out one extremely important and extremely relevant fact: there can be no communication with any other human being in this game without a mutual exchange of friend codes--which must be done outside the game.

Let me repeat that in case you missed it:

There can be no communication with any other human being in this game without a mutual exchange of friend codes--which must be done outside the game.

No, your child is not going to boot Animal Crossing up and instantly be connected to everybody and their dog via the Intarwebs. It doesn't work like that. In fact, until you explicitly tell Rover to turn that option on, the game does not even touch the Internet. And if your child is playing Animal Crossing online with a pedo, you need to be asking where and how that pedo met your kid previously, not blaming the game itself.

One has to wonder why Ms. Lapine and Detective Anderson didn't think that fact important enough to mention. Perhaps mention of the safeguards Nintendo has built into the game would have robbed her story of precious shock value, and everyone knows a boring story is bad for ratings.

Or maybe they just didn't know that. Fair enough, but if I could figure that out before I even owned the game with about five minutes of poking around on Nintendo's site and such, I don't know what the fuck Lapine or Anderson's excuse is. ...well, actually, we do know what Anderson's excuse is, we know exactly what Anderson's excuse is, but I'll get to that later.

And here, ladies and gentlemen, is where the story takes a sharp downward turn from "um, that's not entirely correct but whatever" to "oh my God where the hell did you get your information!?"

For example, the character we ran across could be the man in California police are warning about.

No.

No, no, no, no, NO.

If you haven't already watched the video of the report, please do so. That is the only way you will be able to properly appreciate the complete ignorance and incompetence of this "reporter" and this "Internet crime expert." If you know even the least little bit about Animal Crossing, you will laugh until you pee--because it'll be that or scream at the total stupidity of the "reporter" and the "expert."

If you are stuck in dialup hell or for whatever other reason aren't able to view the video, let me share a little spoiler with you. That "character" they're talking about?

Mayor Tortimer.

Mayor Tortimer, ladies and gentlemen, is an NPC.

Do you know what the term "NPC" means? It is an acronym that stands for "NON-PLAYER CHARACTER." It means that the chances of there being any sentient human being speaking through poor old Mayor Tortimer, let alone some pedo in California, are approximately LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO ZERO. Which, again, Ms. Lapine and Detective Anderson would have known if they'd done just a few minutes of research on how this game actually worked.

Congratulations, ma'am and sir, you've both just outed yourselves as one hundred and ten percent clueless.

But the real gem, the real reason why this story pisses me and so many people off so much... well, let's just let Detective Anderson tell us, shall we?

"There is no reason an adult should have this game," says Andy Anderson, Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force.

Anderson says adults playing "animal crossing" and similar games are likely doing it for the wrong reasons.

Excuse me for regressing to ragefacing and capslocking, but OH SON NO YOU DID NOT.

Never mind the fact that the game is MARKETED TO ADULTS, which--again--you would know if you had done even the least little bit of research--but did you seriously just imply that all adults who play Animal Crossing and games like it are child molesters?

Seriously?

Seriously!?

You know what? Personally, I'd rather not even dignify this little smudge of irresponsible, ignorant, prejudiced bullshit with a response. If it were just some random idiot on the Internet, I would roll my eyes at it, maybe bust out a cat macro or two and a "LOL, lrn2trollbetter" if I didn't have anything better to do, and go on about my business.

But no--here, ladies and gentlemen, we have a police detective with over twenty years of experience, who claims to be an expert in Internet crime, declaring that every adult who plays Animal Crossing is a pedo. This demographic includes me, many of my friends, some of my relatives, and only, oh, thousands and thousands of other good decent people who--surprise surprise--might just enjoy playing cute video games. And that, that bullshit right there, that I will not let slide.

Again, I'd be a little more willing to let that slide if it came out of the mouth of Joe Q. Sixpack, but a police officer should know better than to make statements like that without some hard facts to back them up, and he should jolly goddamned well know better than to use a news story on a serious fucking subject as a soapbox to air his personal prejudice against adults who like video games.

At the least, at the very least, that statement is dangerously irresponsible. Because we all know that there are people in this world who believe a dude with a badge is 100% infallible and that everything you see on the news is 100% true and verified, people who believe this and are crazy enough to watch this story, see Det. Anderson tell them there is no good reason for an adult to play Animal Crossing and one that does is probably a predator looking for prey, and keep that tucked in the backs of their crazy little minds.

And then, next time they're bopping around Wal-Mart and they see an adult walking up to a cash register with Animal Crossing without a child in tow, what do you think they're going to do? If I were a crazy person who believed everything a police officer said on the news, I'd probably call the police to report a possible child molester. The police department's valuable resources would be wasted and, more importantly, the rights of an innocent person who just wanted to play a fucking game are violated.

Do you understand exactly how disgustingly irresponsible Detective Anderson's accusation is? Do you understand exactly how much damage being falsely accused of pedophilia could cause someone?

I am not a lawyer, I don't play one on TV, hell, I've only played one Phoenix Wright game. But that statement is irresponsible at best, and I'm fairly sure that if it doesn't fit the legal definition of libel, well, it's pretty fucking close and I don't know about you, but I'm sure as shit not going to stand for it. And if Ms. Lapine was any sort of competent journalist, she wouldn't have just let it slide without some serious fact-checking either.

Did she ask for a second opinion from another officer? Or, dare we hope, even from an adult who plays online video games, perhaps one with children?

What the fuck do you think she does?

She goes on to spew still more factually inaccurate FUD about Animal Crossing, of course:

You probably have told your kids never to talk to strangers, but when playing, the heart of the game is building relationships with the animals in your town as well as other players. To really reach the next level, the game urges you to exchange letters, gifts, and favors.

Do you need to talk to animals in the town--which are all NPCs? Yes. Do you need to talk to other players? No. It's not required. And setting aside the fact that there are no goddamned levels in this game, yet another small fact Ms. Lapine could have figured out with five minutes of actual fact-checking, those ominous "letters, gifts, and favors" she mentions are all asked for by NPCs.

Online interactions aren't necessary at all. In fact, there is an option for parents to restrict or disable online play. Yet another fact Ms. Lapine chose to either ignore or outright lie about, yet another fact I found out with just a few minutes of research before I even owned the game. Again, if I could find that out, I don't know what her excuse is other than the previously noted shock value theory.

Are you ready for the kicker now?

"The equipment is real expensive and we cannot afford to buy all of the systems and do not have the resources either to examine all of the possibilities," Anderson explains.

That's right--Detective Anderson not only admits he hasn't actually checked any of these facts himself, he admits that he doesn't intend to.

Detective Anderson? Are you seriously suggesting your department is so strapped for funds and personnel that you can't spare $250 for a Wii and $50 or so for Animal Crossing, plus a few hours a day? One would think if you were truly concerned about the threat to children posed by online predators in a game, you would take the time and trouble to familiarize yourself with the ways in which predators could actually contact children through that game.

But I guess it's just easier to lie and slander than it is to do your fucking job. I have an idea as to how your department could find the necessary funds for the equipment to properly research this--it starts with a pink slip addressed to you.

Shame on you, Anderson. And on you, Lapine, for not doing your fucking job as a journalist, and on you, KMIZ news, for not doing your fucking job and making sure the news story you aired was fair and factually correct.

But wait--what about those children who supposedly were contacted by pedos in Animal Crossing? Remember? Way up there at the beginning of the story, Ms. Lapine, where you made that claim?

Right now, we only know of the three Missouri children who have been contacted. Anderson says this is not something to be paranoid about, but to be aware.

This warning includes any web-based game that allows instant messaging or voice-over IP.

So... nowhere in this article, nowhere at all, do you specifically state that the game in question was Animal Crossing: City Folk. The game which, as five fucking minutes of fact-checking would have told you, is arguably the absolute hardest online game to initiate unwanted contact with another person in.

Nowhere at all.

To add insult to injury, now Anderson says "oh, but don't be paranoid about this." After he just told us that all adults with Animal Crossing in their Wii libraries are pedophiles, NOW he says "don't be paranoid."

And now Lapine says "oh, it's not just Animal Crossing," after she's spent the entire article spreading lies and misinformation about that very game.

To quote John Oliver: unbefuckinglievable.

Now. Any serious and respectable news outfit, when called on their spreading of FUD, libel, and misinformation, especially when called on it by large numbers of justifiably pissed-off adult gamers who've just been called pedophiles for no reason, could reasonably be expected to immediately make a public statement to the effect of "whoops, our bad, very sorry" and fire the pathetic excuse for a "reporter" responsible for it.

To date, KMIZ has done neither.

Ms. Lapine has yet to respond to e-mails pointing out the factual inaccuracies in her story; Detective Anderson remains silent as well. I suppose they think that as a serious journalist and a badge-toting Intarwebz Crime Expert, they can say whatever they want and don't have to explain themselves to us.

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it had this to say to my first complaint, which addressed both the ignorant comments by Detective Anderson and the myriad factual errors committed by Ms. Lapine and included an angry but civil and certainly, I think, reasonable demand for a retraction and public apology:

Thanks for taking the time to comment. Let me address some of your concerns. We decided to do the story to let viewers know children had been contacted inappropriately through the game. It was not intended to be an indictment of the game or a smear piece on any form of interactive entertainment. The point of the story was to make parents aware so they could decide whether or not they needed to keep a watchful eye on their kids' activities. The reporter even wrapped the story up by stressing police were not putting this information out to make people paranoid rather trying to make them aware. Again, thanks for taking the time to write. We'll consider your comments when we cover similar stories in the future.

Notice that at no point in his response does he acknowledge the factual inaccuracies pointed out above. Notice that at no point does he apologize for the content of the story. He blows the complaint off with a "thanks, we'll consider it, bye."

His response to a second pointing out of the factual errors in the article and demand for a retraction and apology wasn't much better:

Since Tuesday, we've been discussing a follow up story to clarify our original report. If that happens, it won't be today. I understand your concerns about Det. Anderson's comments. A lot of people share your assessment of them. Thanks for checking back in.

So Curtis acknowledges, at least, that the story pissed a lot of people off. And he does, at least, say that maybe someday they'll get around to doing a follow-up to "clarify" some shit. Of course, he also comments on Anderson's bullshit in the same "oh, sorry you found it offensive" manner as an idiot politician who just got caught forwarding a racist joke to the local NAACP headquarters.

Meanwhile, the original story remains on the KMIZ website, devoid of edits to include the correct factual information I and a horde of other rightfully pissed-off people have sent in, devoid of a disclaimer that Detective Anderson's statement is his personal opinion and not a fact, devoid of anything resembling an apology to the thousands of people that story smears.

The powers that be at the station have yet to do the right thing and issue a retraction and apology for that pathetic excuse for serious journalism; e-mails to the tabloid-caliber "reporter" and news director either go unanswered or yield lukewarm form replies that barely acknowledge Det. Anderson's gross unprofessionalism and incompetence and don't even bother to address the multiple factual errors in the article. And you know what? I'm not holding my breath on KMIZ's crack news team bothering to seek out the opinion of an actual adult gamer on this subject. I'm not holding my breath on them bothering to seek out parents who do their fucking jobs as parents and supervise their childrens' online activities.

I would be willing to bet money that if they ever do get around to that follow-up, it's going to be more of Det. Anderson defending his prejudice and more of Lapine's weak tabloid-class reporting and more of the same fearmongering and FUD.

Which is why I cannot just throw a few cat macros at this issue and hope it goes away. If they're not going to report the facts, then fuck it, I will.

It is a sad day when an armchair pundit can do better investigative reporting without even trying very hard than a professional journalist reporting for an ABC affiliate, let me tell you. It's even sadder when that same armchair pundit does a better fact-checking job than a police detective who claims to be an Internet crime expert.

UPDATE

We can add one more item to the long, long list of ways in which Ms. Lapine fails as a journalist: plagiarism.

This is the Animal Crossing: City Folk brochure I picked up at Gamestop last weekend. Apologies for the flash spots. Does this passage sound familiar?

How about now?

While it isn't uncommon for journalists to quote marketing material, I'm pretty sure they're still supposed to acknowledge the source and not, y'know, change one or two words and try to pass it off as their own writing.

UPDATE THE SECOND

On March 21, the original article was quietly deleted from the KMIZ website and this new web-only article appeared, buried in the local news section on a Saturday where nobody would notice it:

The Mid-Missouri Internet Task Force again is reminding parents to keep an eye on children playing online interactive video games.

Last week, the task force issued a statement saying it had received reports of children who were contacted by adults via the video game Animal Crossing: City Folk for the Wii game system.

The agency issued another statement urging parents to watch children who play the game, but stressed that all adults using the game or game system likely are not contacting children inappropriately.

Task force officials said parents should watch over children who use any game system tied to the Internet.

That's the entirety of the promised "follow-up," and it's exactly what I expected they'd do.

Where are the corrections to the numerous factual errors committed in the original article?

Where's the much-needed mention of the fact that if children were contacted by pedos via Animal Crossing, which I very much doubt, those pedos would have had to meet those children elsewhere first?

As for its handling of Detective Anderson's ignorant money shot... yeah, backpedal faster. I suppose it was too much to ask for KMIZ to do a proper follow-up with input from people who actually had a fucking clue how Animal Crossing worked.

Where's our apology--and not the weaksauce "oh, sorry you thought it was offensive" shit we've been getting from Curtis all week, an actual "sorry we called you pedos" apology? Where's the formal retraction?

Fortunately, I still have the original article saved (and, well, quoted up there) if they decide to go the "WELL WE NEVER SAID THAT, WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT" route.

Stay classy, KMIZ. Staaaaaaaaaaaay classy.

SON OF UPDATE

Curtis claims to be "satisfied" with the weak follow-up; apparently he thinks four half-ass sentences hidden in the local news section on the website is karmically equal to nodding and smiling at an idiot using his alleged expertise to call thousands of adults child molesters on TV. He also says they're talking about another follow-up. Well, after the last pathetic excuse for a follow-up, I can't wait to see what they do this time. Maybe they'll ask a true expert on video games--someone like Jack Thompson or Glenn Beck, perhaps.

Detective Anderson, to the best of my knowledge, hasn't responded to anyone at all, let alone apologized for his ignorance. It must be nice to be able to say whatever stupid irresponsible libelous shit you want on TV and then hide behind your badge when you're called on it.

Anyway, I sent Curtis my AC:CF friend code and invited him to pass it on to any competent journalists might be working at KMIZ to see just how difficult it is to contact a stranger in the game. Smart money says they'll never even try. Because as KMIZ and the Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force have demonstrated, it really is much easier to lie, smear, and make shit up than it is to do actual research on your topic, and scaremongering and FUD get more attention than common sense and facts.

THE FINAL UPDATE

So... did anyone from KMIZ ever get in touch with me to say "hey, we can't get into your town with just your friend code?"

Did anyone at KMIZ ever produce a proper follow-up article that corrected all of Lapine and Anderson's idiotic, ignorant, irresponsible bullshit?

Did anyone involved with this shit ever offer so much as a half-decent apology that wasn't of the "oh, sorry you were offended" sort?

Did someone take Slanderson's badge and gun the hell away from him for being stupid?

AHAHAHAHAHA. HAHAHA. AHAHA. Ha. Haha.

That's fine, guys. 'Cause you know what? All someone has to do is Google "animal crossing pedophiles" to see your lame excuse for journalism plus about five million articles pointing and laughing at you and explaining in great detail why you are entirely full of shit. Congratulations, KMIZ News. Congratulations, Detective Andy Anderson. Collectively, you are the laughing stock of the Internet. I don't think that was the sort of fame you were after, but until you learn how to check your facts before you run your mouths, you're just going to have to settle for being laughed at.

THE FINAL FINAL UPDATE

I kind of stopped giving a shit about this kerfuffle after a while, but I was bored and thought I'd poke some stuff again, and... well, I wasn't expecting to see this.

It appears that Jacqueline Lapine is no longer a member of KMIZ's elite news team... and it appears to have not been her choice.

Apparently her contract with KMIZ expired and KMIZ didn't want to renew it. And according to that article, they made a point of telling her it wasn't because of her bad back. One can only hope it was because someone higher up the food chain went "holy shit, this person has made us the laughing stock of the Internet" and actually decided to take the proper course of action.

Don't worry, Ms. Lapine. I'm sure that the Sun or the Globe or even WorldNetDaily would be happy to have a reporter of your unparalleled skill and moral fiber on staff.

...the bad news: Andy Anderson is still toting a badge.

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