Too bad, but not surprising:

Comedy Central’s new local news mockumentary, “Dog Bites Man,” might have bitten off more than it can chew.

[...]

The 10-episode series about the staff of a dysfunctional morning news show in Spokane, Wash., features segments in which the fictional news team interviews unsuspecting real people–not always to everyone’s delight, as it turns out.

The Oregon attorney general’s office last week fired off its second letter to the network reiterating its protest of the TV crew filming under the guise of making a documentary at a real-life media literacy class at Portland State University.

The first letter, sent May 30, saw no humor in the situation: “We represent the state of Oregon and Portland State University in the dispute involving the fake news crew that visited PSU under false pretenses on May 16, 2006,” wrote Christine A. Chute with the office’s government services and education section. “Please provide me with written assurances that none of the footage filmed at PSU will be aired for any purpose whatsoever.”

What’s funny is that the initial letter was triggered when some academic blowhard professor of media studies was angry that he was duped into participating in a fake panel on politics and the media. So he asked the state attorney general to censor the episode. A fine lesson for your journalists, eh?

Tom Shales review of Dog Bites Man, here. Shales correctly identifies “fake reality TV” as the “new reality TV.” Except that the fake stuff is funnier — and in many ways more real — than the real stuff.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 12th, 2006 at 9:53 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.