The Bizarre Rationale Behind the Kidman Studio Arena Hoax
Someone has come forward claiming to be the person behind the whole Nicole-Kidman / Studio-Arena hoax. There was speculation that Studio Arena itself was responsible. That isn’t the case.
According to Editor & Publisher…
The prank is allegedly the work of one Adam Templeton. A man identifying himself as Adam Trumpleton, and pointing to the Buffalo News stories, claims, in an e-mail to E&P, that he has no connection to the theater involved and placed the false item on a public relations Web site in order to embarrass Buffalo News owner Warren Buffett.
The original News story on Monday had reported that Kidman was coming to the aid of the longtime local showcase, the Studio Arena Theatre. Other local news outlets, including the major TV stations, as well as entertainment sites, had published the false story before the News.
They all got punked by a press release on a anyone-can-post site. What was so amazing is that it wasn’t very hard to do. Here, however, comes the bizarre rationale. It was all designed (supposedly) to embarrass Warren Buffet into saving Studio Arena.
Right. WTF.
On Wednesday, someone claiming to be “Adam Trumpleton” (his identity has not been confirmed) wrote in an email to E&P, “The point of the prank is this: Buffalo has its own Nicole Kidman right under its very nose — and her name is Warren Buffett. Let Warren Buffett, who has taken so, so much out of the city of Buffalo and given back zilch save the theater. Instead of counting on Nicole Kidman, who has no connection to the city of Buffalo whatsoever, let the city turn for one single time to one of the individuals that it has enriched to such an astounding extent: Warren Buffett.”
In his e-mail to E&P, “Trumpleton” stated: “Someone needed to smack him, and I am okay with the fact that it was me who had to do it. And my apologies to the staff of the theater if they felt this was in any way intended to embarrass them — it was not. They are doing an amazing job in light of huge adversity.”
The News reacted thusly:
Buffalo News Editor Margaret Sullivan issued the following statement to E&P: “Whoever this person is doesn’t have his facts right and clearly has an axe to grind against the paper and its owner. In fact, Warren Buffett has been extremely generous to the community, both through the newspaper and through his own successful efforts to bring employment here other than at the paper.”
People really are strange.
But one interesting side note - notice how for just about everything, everything in this city, people assume some big silver bullet or generous gazillionaire will just swoop down and make Buffalo great again. Pathetic.
Becky Says:August 29th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Sullivan is big on axe-grinding lately.
Actually, around the turn of the previous century gadzillionaires did regularly come to the rescue, setting up both social service groups and cultural pursuits. Maybe nowadays they don’t feel as appreciated or feel as responsible for their fellow citizens as they used to.
geoff kelly Says:August 29th, 2008 at 11:45 am
This claim of responsibility is entirely unsubstantiated as well. I’m surprised E&P posted a story based on an email — especially an email from a person claiming responsibility for a hoax. That’s a reliable source?
And I’d be surprised that Margaret Sullivan responded to it, except, of course, that they’re the rubes who gave this Kidman thing legs to begin with.
hank Says:August 29th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Becky knows her history.
Since the Internal Revenue Service Act didn’t become law until 1917, “at the turn of the Centry”, nobody paid Income Tax. The very wealthy felt a lot of guilt about the plight of their fellow citizens, and did many things to assuage that guilt with their money. Some, like Andrew Carnegie, decided to spend the rest of his life giving away much of the money he made.
Today we have essentially 2 kinds of people with money–the rich and the wealthy.
As Chris Rock said “Shaquille O’Neal is Rich–the white guy who signs Shaq’s checks is Wealthy”.
The Rich hold on to their money. The Wealthy are philanthropic to many varying degrees.
For that matter, Nicole Kidman is rich, but Warren Buffett is wealthy.
Warren Buffet could bail out the Studio Arena with about as much effort as one of us uses to clean up after a trip to the toilet. Why he doesn’t is the issue that should be addressed, not this bullshit way of attempting him to make him look foolish. With his kind of money, nobody can make him feel anything he doesn’t want to.
Alan hit the nail on the head again. If history can teach us anything, THERE IS NO SILVER BULLET. Not for any problem that befalls us.
Brian Bain Says:August 29th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
It’s pretty clear that Warren Buffett has been an absentee landlord when it comes to the city of Buffalo. What’s funny is that when Buffalo News editor Margaret Sullivan tries to list all the good things Warren Buffett has done for the city of Buffalo…she seems kinda at a loss for words and very hard-pressed to come up with anything at all concrete. She says Buffett tried to get some jobs to go there — maybe by making a phone call or two or writing a letter or signing a letter from someone else — and that the newspaper has conducted various unspecified charitable efforts.
The truth is that the Buffalo News for decades has had a 30% profit margin, compared to an industry standard in the newspaper industry of about half that. They have understaffed their newsroom, is one reason why. All that profit has gone out of town, unless Buffett is funding some kind of Buffalo News-related foundation that Sullivan is unaware of, which most big city newspapers do. Such as the Cowles Foundation in Minneapolis, funded by the Cowles Family that used to own the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Buffett’s son Peter Buffett is actually an entertainer — I think he is a pianist. Perhaps he will read the stories online and talk to his dad to come up with a few bucks — like, $300,000 on the condition that private citizens in Buffalo match it. Pretty sure Peter would have no way of knowing about the theater’s problem except for this controversy.
And most likely Warren Buffett himself was entirely unaware of the financial situation of the most prestigious and oldest theater in Buffalo. Really, there is no reason he should have known about it — since he lives in Omaha, his only real connection to the city of Buffalo is that the newspaper is a source of revenue for him. It’s not like he woulda read about it in the Buffalo News. So now Buffett does know, I would bet, and perhaps he is interested in offering long-terms suggestions as to how the problem might be solved, and probably finds the whole situation to be kinda funny.
Long-term solutions, because there’s no point in just throwing money at the theater if it’s just going to go belly up in another year.
Steve Samuels Says:August 29th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Whatever the explanation, the Studio Arena Theater couldn’t have hoped for a better piece of inspired “political theater” to broadcast its plight to the public.
If the theater ultimately fails, it won’t be because nobody knew about its trouble and that it needed help.
Now EVERYONE in town knows it is in deep, deep trouble. And they can now vote with their wallets whether or not it deserves to be saved.
Vincent Mirana Says:August 29th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Instead of whining about how it got “duped” — the Buffalo News should show some class and launch an investigative series on how the Studio Arena Theatre got into such a mess in the first place.
And then — like any decent paper in any other city of such size — it should outline a plan on how the problem should be solved.
It’s easy to whine, Ms. Sullivan — but hard to face the challenge of offering a solution. But that’s what great newspapers that truly serve their communities do.
They investigate community problems; they delineate and define them; and then they offer intelligent concrete solutions.
We call this “Journalism 101.”
MaryAnne Says:August 29th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Fact checking.
Aren’t newspapers supposed to check their facts? Isn’t that something that real journalists do?
Bob Says:August 29th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Well, admittedly the news broke over the weekend, and so it would be impossible to call any of the businesses listed on the press release because they would be closed. And three local television stations had already reported it and the director of the theater Kathleen Gaffney had said “it’s real.” So the newspaper could not have ignored it, really, because it had already been so widely covered locally.
Sometimes with breaking news these stories are written overnight.
Let’s just hope it turns into something good for the theater.
Greg Says:August 30th, 2008 at 9:37 am
Like Buffet even knows what the snooze is printing on a day to day basis
he’s owner, not editor
MaryAnne Says:September 1st, 2008 at 11:00 am
Bob correctly points out the difficulties inherent in late breaking stories except that the subject was not so important that checking on it could not have waited. The information that the three local television stations had already reported the same bad information tells me two (2) things: that the same low standards of reporting are shared by ALL the news outfits, and they follow each other around to determine what is news.
Also, note to the perpetrator of the hoax: when you have to explain yourself, you have not done a very good job of making your point. You become the story, which diverts for the point you’re trying to make.