Radio Station Tries to Track Down Source of Bogus AP 'Meteor Crash' Report

By: Joe Strupp The Seattle radio station that was the source of a bogus Associated Press report yesterday of a meteor possibly crashing in Washington state is trying to track down the false tipster, but would not say what specifically was being done. "We've got a recording of it," KIRO Managing Editor Ursula Reutin told E&P. "We are taking measures to try to track him down."

The AP apparently based yesterday's story on a possible meteorite hitting near Olympia, Wash. -- which was later retracted as a hoax -- on a person calling a middle-of-the-night talk show at the Seattle station claiming to be an astronomy expert, not a valid news report from the radio station.

The original story, which AP released at 4:03 a.m. PST Thursday, stated that someone identified as Bradley Hammermaster, and purported to be a University of Washington astronomy instructor, had told KIRO Radio in Seattle that a piece of meteor "about the size of a small car" had hit just before 3 a.m. PST.

AP also quoted the man as saying "a team was being assembled to head for the area where the object was believed to have hit near the tiny southwestern Washington community of Chehalis."

But KIRO's Reutin said Friday that the AP report was based on someone calling into a talk show claiming to be an astronomer, not a person interviewed as a source on the subject. "We had a talk show on during that time and people were calling in and that individual called in to to give his explanation of what it was and it was false," she said. "By 4 a.m. (PST), we had figured out it was a hoax and made a correction."

AP then responded quickly, sending out an advisory at about 4:23 a.m. PST stating, "The AP story Meteorite-Washington ... has been eliminated. The identity of the source of the story cannot be confirmed." By then the original report had turned up on many news sites. Later versions of the AP story revealed the hoax, reporting that "No one by the name of Hammermaster is known to the astronomy department."

Still, the question remains: who at AP filed the original report based on the call-in show, and why? An AP spokesman, who had said Thursday that the false elements of the story were removed as soon as possible, did not return calls Friday.

Still, Reutin would not lay all of the blame on AP, saying her staff should have done a better job of confirming the information. "We are the station of record (in Seattle) and AP monitors us a lot," she added. "We are taking steps to make sure we can protect ourselves more."

Reutin said her news department initially believed the bogus caller because he called in after a KIRO staffer left a message for the University of Washington astronomy department seeking comment about reports of bright lights and flashes along the Puget Sound. "There was reason to believe it was them (calling back)," she said.