08 February 2010 18:15
Only in Oz: A Current Affair busted by media watchdog
A Current Affair's road safety crusade entered slippery legal territory after it used recycled footage from a two-year-old Top Gear audition tape in a faked attempt to “trap” a hoon driver.
editor@australiantimes.co.uk
On Feb 2, the heavily promoted ACA opening segment, entitled “Car Hoon” and tagged with an “exclusive” watermark, ran three full minutes of footage of a mystery man called “Carlo” driving his souped-up Nissan in Sydney.
A Current Affair's report:
Despite ACA reporter Tom Steinfort asking the public to help find the driver he referred to as "Crazy Carlo", the Youtube footage shows the young driver introducing himself with: "Hi everybody at Freehand, my name is Carlo Arena and I would like to be your Stig."
View the original video here:
Crikey revealed the source for the story was a YouTube clip, the origin of which has been called into question.
The clip was uploaded to the web in September last year and was originally filmed as an audition for another Channel Nine program, Top Gear.
Channel Nine secured the rights to Top Gear in September last year – around the same time the footage was posted on Youtube by somebody calling themselves "Mr Anonymous234". It is the only video MrAnon has posted.
The clip clearly identified the driver's first and last name and its intended purpose - an audition tape for the Top Gear section, The Stig, which encourages drivers to test-drive vehicles anonymously, which Steinfort claims not to know. None of this footage was aired by Nine.
“Does sound plausable (sic) that tabloid journalists would of got hold of it, 'leaked it onto YouTube' then put it on ACA instead of admitting they got it through their Top Gear deal,” Sicarius123 wrote on
performanceforums.com.
Does you think A Current Affair has been caught out again? Comment below