Tornado videographer denies doctoring footage
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By DAVID BAUDER / The Associated Press
NEW YORK — A storm chaser accused of doctoring old tornado video and selling it under the pretense that it was taken last week in Nebraska denied wrongdoing Thursday, suggesting that professional jealousy was behind the allegation.
The Associated Press and video services operated by CBS, NBC and Fox pulled the video late Tuesday after determining that there was enough evidence to question its authenticity.
Andy Fabel agreed to sell the footage for $295 to The Associated Press, and also made it available to the other news organizations. The AP has purchased tornado video from Fabel on three previous occasions.
NEW YORK - In a July 9 story on doubts raised about a tornado video recently used by news organizations, The Associated Press incorrectly reported that it was shot by the storm chaser who said it was doctored footage of a twister in Nebraska four years ago. He was not the camera operator for any video referenced in the story.
The AP story also failed to explain why it had granted anonymity to the storm chaser, who called the AP to question the video. He was identified in a later story as Dan Robinson, president of Appalachian Skies Media.
A fellow storm chaser, Dan Robinson of Appalachian Skies Media, contacted the AP to say he believed Fabel’s video was a doctored version of images taken of another twister that touched down four years ago in Rock, Kan.
Fabel told the AP on Thursday that he legitimately filmed the Nebraska storm. He said fellow storm chasers are “jealous of you if you got a tornado that they wanted. They’ll pack it up and try to crucify you.”
Robinson said the image was “flipped” to make it seem the tornado was pointed in another direction, and the action sped up. The supposed Nebraska footage includes power lines not seen in the Kansas storm; it also is minus trees shown in the Kansas images.
Robinson said he was familiar with the Kansas storm because he, too, had filmed it from a similar angle. He said at least four other storm chasers who had witnessed the Kansas storm agreed on an Internet forum that the video was from Kansas.
The AP had sent Fabel’s video Sunday to nearly 2,000 Web sites that subscribe to the company’s Online Video Network, and more than 60 large digital customers that buy AP’s online content individually. Upon seeing the evidence, the AP eliminated the video from OVN and contacted its other customers to urge them not to use it, said Kevin Roach, the AP’s acting head of domestic broadcast news operations.
“We never want to mislead people,” Roach said. “Based on evidence provided to us, we believe that the video was not authentic.”
Roach said the AP looked at the two video streams side-by-side, and examined individual frames of the footage in making its determination. He also asked for opinions from a photo editor and third storm chaser, Roach said.
“It was rather definitive for us,” he said.
The NBC, CBS and Fox services provide video to the networks’ affiliates. They had agreed to buy Fabel’s video and distributed it, then took it off their servers on Tuesday after suspicions were raised, representatives for the networks said.
“There was enough evidence for us to make it suspect,” said Sharon Houston, an executive producer with NBC News Channel.
John Stack, vice president of newsgathering for Fox News Channel, said Fabel has been one of the top storm chasers relied upon by media for tornado pictures. Now he said Fabel’s work is suspect.
“The concern is whether he’s an actual newsgatherer or Cecil B. DeMille,” Stack said.
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