Not Funny: Fake Invasion News Freaks Out Georgians

Millions of Americans panicked -- to the point of screaming and shooting -- when legendary filmmaker, then an aspiring radio star, Orson Welles produced and broadcast a teleplay of H.G. Wells' classic War of the Worlds in the late 1930s.

"Good heavens, something's wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake," said an actor, and thousands said they saw one.

Another eerie but this time purposeful media deception took place in Georgia late last week, when the evening news reported…

RUSSIA IS INVADING. WE REPEAT, RUSSIA IS INVADING.

Georgians (from the former Soviet country, not the U.S. State) rushed into the street and made so many cell phone calls that satellites were jammed. The Imedi network report was, apparently, meant to show what would happen if the president were killed. The network apologized. But the scare flared up fresh wounds, both mental and physical, from the country's 2008 war … with Russia.

Eighteen months ago, a "gray snake" of Russian tanks came within 28 miles of Tbilisi, the Georgian capital. On August 9 of that year, Russian bombs blitzed the South Ossetia region, widely condemned by the international community.

Within a week, the European Union mediated a ceasefire, which still holds despite the fake news. In the early 1990s, a war broke out between newly-independent Georgians (who now belong to an EU-leaning "Eastern Partnership") and Ossetians, after which the latter were and remain under unofficial Russian control.

Although decidedly not funny, the fake news did surface some startling realities: to what extent Georgians fear (if not expect) a Russian invasion, how whole populations in countries with new media (like radio was in Wells' time) can be duped, and how idiotic (though some call it skillful) media producers can be.

And yet, some saw a different implication altogether: the Georgian opposition party leader recently returned from Moscow after meeting with Vladimir Putin.

Photo credit: soaplylovedeb