February 08 2007
YouTube of NZ “Ferry” Misrepresented on Canadian TV
posted by Ana Samways at 4:20 pm
The YouTube video of a rough-as-guts Cook Strait crossing — posted first on Spare Room back in January – has been wrongly identified on Canadian television as a Marine Atlantic passenger ferry going from Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.
The footage is of a freighter called “Suilven” shot way back in February 2002 as it exits the Wellington heads into Cook Strait. Read the New Zealand MetService report here. (Scroll down for still images).
Like chinese whispers the video spread from its humble beginnings on Spare Room, onto Neatorama — one of the world’s top 100 sites –- and into the blogosphere at large. That’s when details began to get a little hazy.
Last week it made it into Canada’s mainstream media which reported the boat was the MV Caribou, a ferry connecting Newfoundland with Cape Breton. Newfoundland and Halifax television newscasts ran on Sunday, followed by the usually reputable Canadian CTV network in their Monday morning news programme.
The ferry company is rightly peeved about the misinformation and says they received several calls from concerned passengers cancelling, and the video appears to have hurt bookings.
The TV bosses are contrite, saying the two reporters involved each thought the other was contacting Marine Atlantic for verification. They promptly broadcast an apology last Thursday.
The video clip has now been viewed 95,000 times.
Read the full story here.