Fake beheading video causes stir Fake beheading video causes stir (September 24, 2004)

FBI warns Pleasanton man not to ruin his life
by Teresa C. Brown

Curious about how fake news might spread on the Internet, a Pleasanton man and two friends produced a bogus beheading video, which months later created an international stir.

Amador Valley High graduate Robert Martin, 23, his girlfriend Laurie Kirchner, 20, and Martin's San Francisco friend Benjamin Vanderford, 22, posted a video they had hastily videotaped in two hours on a file-sharing network in May.

In the video file, titled "American soldier beheaded in Iraq," Vanderford gives his real name and address while in the background someone can be heard reading the Quran. Spliced between Vanderford's image are explicit stills of war casualties.

"The most we were expecting was Internet people talking about it," said Martin, an experimental musician who studied video-making.

He explained that he and Vanderford were curious how the video would spread if others got hold of it. He thought that maybe 10-15 people, at the most, would view it, he added.

For about a week following its production in his Pleasanton garage, Martin said he checked the network to see if anyone had downloaded the video. But Internet interest was minimal; he found a couple conversation threads about it with most people commenting on how fake it looked.

Martin forgot about the minutes-long video until his mother called him at 7 a.m. Saturday morning, Aug. 7.

"She told me to go to the TV right now," he recalled. "I was in shock. I couldn't believe it."

Although Martin does not know how the video ended up in media hands, for almost an hour that day, the Associated Press as well as Reuters news service and two Middle Eastern television stations reported that Vanderford had been beheaded in Iraq.

Quickly following the beheading report, the story broke that the video was fake and the telephone started ringing for Martin. He headed for San Francisco, wanting to talk to Vanderford about the rapidly growing chain of events. While en route to the city, Martin got a call from the FBI.

The federal agents were at his house and wanted to talk to him immediately, he recalled. "It was an intimidating experience," Martin said, adding that he had never had any dealings with law enforcement before this incident.

He provided the agents with a CD with the video file on it, and for an hour, he answered questions such as did he support terrorism and has he ever associated with a known terrorist.

Before concluding the interview, the agents left him with an ominous warning: He had a nice life and everything going for him, but the "pendulum" could swing in the opposite direction.

The fake video had other repercussions, Martin learned, within a couple days of its broadcast. When ousting al-Jazeera out of Baghdad, Iraq's prime minister cited the broadcast of the hoax video as an example of the television station provoking hostility.

Martin weathered a short, but intense, media storm that followed, including articles and editorials denouncing the trio.

While Martin regrets any pain the video caused families who have lost someone to terrorists, he does not believe he shoulders the blame alone.

"I don't regret making it," he said. The news media that reported the video as authentic wanted to be the first to report it, he said, and did not do any fact checking first.

"How come they didn't bother to call (Vanderford) or something before they decided to run this story," Martin said.

That question has become a leading news story in recent days as CBS and its lead reporter Dan Rather come under scrutiny for basing a derogatory report on President Bush's National Guard service on documents of questionable origin.

Media self-examination may lead to more attention for Martin. He is preparing for an interview today with ABC network's news magazine 20/20 for a segment that may be aired as early as next week.

"It's not something new," Martin said, voicing his opinion of the CBS incident. "It's just a coincidence that (Dan Rather) got caught."

Riding on a wave of interest from the incident, Martin and Vanderford were hired to make a video putting together a television ad for a San Francisco superintendent candidate.

And while Martin does not consider himself an activist, he does think he might work on future projects to make political or social statements. But, he quickly added, nothing as risky.

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