This Just In: MSNBC Report on Fobos-Grunt

[beamjockey]

The crawl text under the newscaster on CNN MSNBC this afternoon reads, in part:

RUSSIAN MILITARY SPOKESMAN: FAILED RUSSIAN MARS PROBE CRASHES INTO PACIFIC OCEAN ABOUT 700 MILES EAST OF CHILE

I'd like to see that on a map.






Edited to add: This error occurred on the MSNBC cable network, not CNN as I had first reported. My apologies to CNN for the mistake, which does not speak well of my own journalistic accuracy. Thanks to alert newshound caindog for the correction.

Comments

[scarfman]

I'm just guessing here, but - given that it's easier to mix up a direction than the name of an ocean - they meant "west".

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

My bet is that the note was typoed "EST" (dropping the "W") and some helpful-but-unclued other individual fixed it by adding an "A". That, or total thinko when transcribing the newsfeed.

Still, even if it's a title-crawl it should've been fact-checked and the error caught.

-- Steve will admit to hastily saying "left" when he meant "right" on occasion...

[kathythorne.livejournal.com]

I have to back this up - having written a Ph. D. dissertation on the topic. Most "spatial" geographic errors of this type are actually semantic errors. People frequently flip east and west or right and left. Never north and south though.

[seawasp]

I like the fact that on the bottom section you get "... out of GOP race into Pacific Ocean.."

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

Its that kind of precision which resulted in Fobos-Grunt not making it to Mars.

At least, I hope the Barsoomian Protection Force hasn't extended its influence to Earth orbit.

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

That's not precision! That's _accuracy_! :-)

[planettom.livejournal.com]

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

I thought Krakatoa was east of Dusseldorf.
At least that's what Monty Python's Flying Circus said.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

It is east of Java...if you go the long way 'round.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

*snork*
It's at moments like these that I am reminded that CNN was founded by a guy who dated Jane Fonda.

[caindog.livejournal.com]

It's at moments like these that I wonder why nobody has yet noticed that these screencaps are all from MSNBC, not CNN.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Ouch! Correction and apology added. Thank goodness for the watchdogs of accuracy.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

Ouch indeed.
Here I went and thought of Ted Turner for no reason.
I need to wash.

[jiawen]

You know what is 700 miles east of Chile? The Falklands. So this is clearly an elaborate cover-up by Martian-Malvina rebels.

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

Apparently, the Russians may know something about the presidential campaign that has so far escaped the rest of us:

MITT ROMNEY
(R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE
----
RUSSIAN MILITARY SPOKESMAN: FAILED MARS PROBE.

[planettom.livejournal.com]

this report on space.com puts it 1250 kilometers west of the Island of Wellington in Chile (49.333333 S, 74.666667 W) which puts it about here: 49.333333 S, 92 W in Google Earth.

But this report claims that it entered atmosphere over the Atlantic, so it's possible that some parts came down in Brazil before it met its end in the Pacific.