On Oct. 30, 1938, legend says tens of thousands of radio listeners were convinced Earth was under attack by Martians after listening to Orson Wells’ “War Of The Worlds.” It was a different time, listeners who didn’t catch the program’s epilogue and adverts running as usual didn’t have many alternate media resources to rely on to debunk the story.
On Sunday thousands of NASCAR fans took to social media while watching the Daytona 500 telecast believing that Danica Patrick was a contender and that Jimmie Johnson had repeated as winner of the Great American Race.
One problem: the race was in the midst of a six-hour rain delay and the 2013 race was being re-aired.
Scores of those believing they were watching a live broadcast were subsequently clowned on Deadspin.
As the 2013 encore presentation ended, Johnson was being texted congratulations in his trailer and even Daytona officials got in the act by tweeting that Johnson would soon be doing his post-race press conference.
It did not do much for the generations-old stereotypes of the literacy of NASCAR fans, even if it was just a minute fraction of gullible viewers.
There should have been plenty of clues, even for those somehow unable to read bottom line scrolls.
Those who have the resources of the social media should have been clued-in on the rain disrupting the event. Even casual fans should had been wondering why Kevin Harvick was still in the No. 29 car and not his new number No. 4 ride. Or announcer Mike Joy’s constant references to Jimmie Johnson as a five-time series champion (he won his sixth title last fall). Or events going down exactly as they had 364 days earlier. There were plenty of opportunities to add two plus two.
Or FOX could have just stuck in a picture-in-picture of the current soaked Daytona track to clarify the real-time situation.
A few clueless fans are one thing, but what got incredible was mainstream media as the replayed race wound down. The ESPNW Twitter site gave updates on Danica Patrick’s historic bid to become the first female Daytona winner (which were quickly deleted).
Then, even better, the “unbiased” source of journalistic excellence known as Fox News reported Jimmie Johnson as the winner!
No wonder Karl Rowe doesn’t trust them.
What is their relationship with Fox Sports, which just happened to be doing the telecast?
Shocked viewers would turn into Fox later in the evening expecting to see Bob’s Burgers, only to find the legitimate 2014 version of the Daytona 500 about to restart in prime time.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. would hang on to beat Jimmie Johnson and others to win his second career Daytona 500. I then turned on the Big Ten Network to discover that in an amazing quirk in the conference schedule, Wisconsin was winning at Iowa for the second consecutive night.
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