SIVACRACY.NET: Professors with no sense of humor

From The Chronicle of Higher Education:

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Comedy Central Apologizes for Duping 2 Professors in Separate Incidents

By DON TROOP

A top official at the Comedy Central television station has apologized on Tony Fox,executivebehalf of the members of a fictitious news crew who misrepresented themselves to two faculty members during separate tapings of a forthcoming series called Dog Bites Man.

Tony Fox, executive vice president for corporate communications at Comedy Central, said on Tuesday that members of the independent production crew responsible for the program had "mishandled" the two incidents by not acknowledging that they were fake news reporters when people challenged their credentials.

"Unfortunately, the tactics of this particular production company are not consistent with what we think are good business practices," Mr. Fox said. "We're in the business of producing entertainment and comedy, not upsetting people."

And let there be no mistake: Fred Smoller is upset. An associate professor of political science at Chapman University, Mr. Smoller said he was contacted by a company called Central Productions and asked to speak on media issues in a March 30 panel discussion at a local racquet club, in Orange County, Calif. The discussion, he was told, would be filmed as part of American Eye, a documentary series on major public-policy issues facing the nation. The company even had its own Web site.

Mr. Smoller showed up on the appointed evening, signed a routine waiver acknowledging that the producers could edit the video footage as they saw fit, and accepted a $150 honorarium for his trouble. The 60 or 70 members of the audience, many of whom he recognized as local residents with strong political interests, were paid $20 apiece and also signed waivers. Mr. Smoller's fellow panelists included a reporter for a local business journal, and "Kevin Beekin," a television reporter for KHBX-TV, in Spokane, Wash.

Mr. Smoller said it became obvious that something was awry when Mr. Beekin described an interview in which his subject propositioned him. One audience member who called out after deducing that it was all an elaborate joke was escorted outside and given $60 in hush money, according to the OC Weekly.

"Afterward," said Mr. Smoller, "they hurried us out of the building and refused to answer any of our questions." He and several of the audience members were initially concerned that they might be the victims of a financial scam, since they had all been asked for their Social Security numbers as a condition of payment.

Mr. Smoller figured out later that Mr. Beekin was actually Matt Walsh, an actor who has appeared in such comedies as Old School. But Mr. Smoller could not get anyone to answer his questions until he hired a lawyer and told his story to the Los Angeles Times and the OC Weekly. That's when Mr. Fox called from Comedy Central and apologized to Mr. Smoller.

Mr. Smoller maintains that the station's response is inadequate, and he is demanding that it donate money for a symposium on ethics and the media, and provide assurances that the mock news program will stop duping students and faculty members. Mr. Smoller said he had also spoken with Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a Democrat of California, about the matter. Her office did not immediately return calls from The Chronicle.

A Rat in the Classroom

Among those who read the news articles about the bogus panel discussion was Jil Freeman, a communications instructor at Portland State University, in Oregon, who was also taken in by the fake news crew.

Ms. Freeman was unable to comment for this article in time for publication, but she had told her story to Mr. Smoller in an e-mail account that he forwarded to The Chronicle.

In her description, Ms. Freeman said that she had been contacted by a representative of "Coast to Coast Productions," a television-production company said to be working on a documentary of America's cultural landscape. After some negotiations and after discussing it with her chairman, Ms. Freeman agreed that the documentary crew could come to her classroom to speak to her students in small groups about popular culture and the news media. Waivers were signed, each student was paid $20, and Ms. Freeman was given $100, money that she said she tried to decline.

Soon after the fictitious television-news team appeared, a student recognized Mr. Walsh from Old School but was told that "he gets that a lot." The crew then told the students that they were going to get a lesson about how to break into the news business.

Ms. Freeman smelled a rat, and told the producer that she wanted to know what was going on. As she argued with the woman outside the classrooms, Ms. Freeman said in her account, her students were being told such things as "blindfolds are for the bedroom, not an interview session," and "you need to get someone in a turban if you are going to do a story on gas prices."

Ms. Freeman said the actors never owned up to the joke.

Comedy Central's Mr. Fox acknowledged that Mr. Smoller and Ms. Freeman had a right to be upset but said that he did not believe that the production crew had violated any laws.

He refused to give the production company's real name or to provide contact information to The Chronicle. A message left for Coast to Coast Productions at a telephone number provided by Ms. Freeman was not immediately returned on Tuesday.

Mr. Fox did say that the footage of the panel discussion in which Mr. Smoller participated would never appear on Dog Bites Man, and he expressed optimism that the station could reach some type of agreement with Ms. Freeman. He said that, to his knowledge, Mr. Smoller and Ms. Freeman were the only two academics to have been contacted by the program.

Mr. Smoller said he feared a "chilling effect" if academics have to scrutinize the motives of guest speakers in their classrooms and of people who invite professors to speak elsewhere.

"They're pissing in our pool, and I can't have that," he said. "I think I'm representing all faculty members, and I'm hoping that other people will join the cause."