Mistaken identity in the Twitter age

I cannot remember the first time I was told not to take police scanner traffic as gospel, nor who told me, but in my career as a journalist that advice has served me quite well over the past 25 years.

Oh it's a great tool. The dispatchers on the other end can help you find out where the fire equipment is traveling. But that report cannot tell you if there really is a fire until there are eyes on the scene. Scanner traffic can let you know police and rescue are responding to the report of a crash. But it doesn't tell you anything about the crash. Use the scanner for tips, we were always told, but you need to confirm anything you report.

Tell that to the families of Sunil Tripathi, and if there really is such a person as Mike Mulugeta. Twitter lit up about midnight Pacific time last night with those two names, as a number of people tweeted that they had heard those names over police radios as the suspects in the shooting of an MIT police officer, and later the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing. People ran with the names and they trended on Twitter. Some even said that Mulugeta had been shot dead and the police were going door-to-door in Watertown, Mass., looking for Tripathi.

When I woke up this morning, it turned out there had been a change in the story, and Tripathi and Mulugeta were no longer the suspects. Instead, two brothers of Chechnyan descent, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, were connected to all the crimes, with Tamerlan (Suspect 1) dying after being taken into custody.

I'll let the current events play themselves out without any comment, but the rapid spread of the wrong names is an issue I cannot ignore. I especially feel bad for the family of Tripathi, a Brown University student who has been missing for about a month. They had to take down the Facebook page they were using to generate tips on his possible whereabouts when it was overrun with people thinking he had committed these crimes.

As I have stated before, both in print and on this blog, Twitter and Facebook put some powerful tools in the hands of people who might not use them for the best purposes. I am sure most of the people who used the incorrect names did not do it with malicious intent, but ultimately the shoot first and apologize later nature of social media has caused issues that will never be rectified.

Meanwhile, it is yet another example of why I was always extra-careful with scanner traffic. I know I had a few reporters who got sick of me telling them we needed more information before we could run with something, especially after a television station moved into our market and started putting scanner traffic up on its website. To make matters worse, once our digital media manager got her hands on Twitter, she started doing the same thing, and I had to explain to reporters why she could do it, but I would not allow them to take that shortcut.

I hate to say I told you so on such an important issue, but, well, you know...

"Sullivan & Son" & Me

Because of the holy holidays last week, Christina had a few days off from LMU and we decided to give a sitcom taping another try. Once again we headed out to Warner Bros. in Burbank, this time to see the production of “Sullivan & Son,” which is starting its second season on TBS this June.

I liked this show last summer when it debuted. Its executive producers are Vince Vaughn and Peter Billingsley (yes, Ralphie from “A Christmas Story”) and it is overseen by Rob Long, one of the folks behind “Cheers.” It should be no surprise that it includes an ensemble cast and takes place at a bar.

The drill was pretty much the same as last fall when we went to see a taping of “Mike & Molly.”   Park the car in the deck and stand/sit in line for about an hour, then cross the main street to the actual studio entrance, go through two layers of security and then wait outside the stage until they were ready for the audience. 

This was our first indication it could be a long night. Unlike “Mike & Molly,” “Sullivan &  Son” runs a test rehearsal at 1 p.m. on show day, then shoots the show with a new audience that arrives at 4 p.m. However, in our case, we were still outside the stage at 5 p.m., and saw folks heading from the building at that time, including Vaughn. 

Once we got inside, our best guess they still they had some work to do on the script after the run-through, which backed up everything for the rest of the evening. The taping, which a gadabout in the crowd told us normally starts around 5:30, did not get going until 7 p.m.

The warmup comedian, Gary Cannon, was definitely better than the fellow at “Mike & Molly.” And that was a good thing for me, because unlike there, I was unable to avoid being drawn into the between-scenes parlor games.

Christina actually figured out Gary had spotted me a few minutes before he called me up to the front of the audience when he stated, “We have somebody famous in the audience tonight.” If only my similar appearance to Bill Gates could turn into a money-making opportunity instead of an easy way for people in bars to keep track of my tab.

While the crew was getting busy setting up the next scene about a half hour into the production, I was summoned to the front of the audience of about 150-200 people. Gary first asked my name, and when I said Charles, he said sure, "but this is actually Bill Gates, and he will be taking the entire audience out to eat after the show." Then Gary asked what I do, and I said I was in newspapers, but between jobs. He then pointed at Christina, asked “Is this Mrs. Gates?” and then apologized for me taking her on a date to a free television show taping.

Then it got real ugly. Gary said I would be the first contestant in a “dance-off” that would be going on through the night. I was asked to pick a number between one and 100, and I said 65, and that was how they selected a song. I did very poorly dancing to a song that I guess is on the current Top 40, so poorly that Gary then summoned a nice young actor-hopeful named Devon, who had already bailed out other audience members. Devon told me to just follow his lead and I ended up dancing along with him to “I’m Too Sexy.”

Before I could face further embarrassment, the hijinks stopped so another scene could be filmed. After that, I was given a bottle of dog shampoo and sent back to my seat. Over the next three hours we got candy twice and a turkey sandwich and water as the show continued. Unlike “Mike & Molly,” where each scene was shot twice, there were additional takes to get all of the camera angles the producers wanted. The production resembled what I understood most sitcoms to be, with three cameras on the floor as well as a modern addition of a couple overhead cameras.

As the evening wore on I enjoyed that would Gary refer to myself and about a dozen other audience members every once in a while. For me, it was whenever anything happened that required money or other financial tools. For example, during a scene in which the Korean mother on the show (played by Jodi Long) put a declined credit card in the blender and chopped it to shreds, another card was needed to shoot the effect again. When the prop master took a little too much time, Gary stage-whispered in the microphone, “Hey Charles, give me a credit card.”

The crew did its best to keep the audience involved, with one of the extras who is also a standup comedian telling a few jokes, and show creator and star Steve Byrne thanking the crowd as the taping neared its final scene.

We had a good time, and cannot wait to see the final product on TBS this summer, but the verdict from our "Mike & Molly" experience remains. Due to their length, I think I’ll leave sitcom tapings to entertaining visitors from out of town who really want to go rather than making it a regular thing.