On Saturday night, a Georgia television station made a half an hour report about Russia invading the country. The report was fake but nobody knew of this knowledge until the broadcast was over; they announced at the end of it that the report wasn’t true. The station was running a test to see what it would be like if an invasion did occur. Hearing about this freaked everyone out and caused a rush of panic throughout Georgia.
Imedi TV studio symbol
The “simulation”, as the television station called it, was shown to see what it would look like if a new story of Russia invading would happen. At the end of the broadcast there was a note that appeared stating that the events in the program were not true. There was nothing before or during the program that said anything about it being mock though. So this frightened many and people that didn’t watch the entire program had no idea it was all fake.
Pro-government Imedi TV was the name of the Georgia television station. It reported in the broadcast that four Georgia citizens were dead and six of them were injured close to South Ossetia. The anchor gave false updates during the report about Russia military bombing the Georgia capital’s airport and a military base that was also in the country. In the mock report, they used sound clips from the president of Russia to make it sound even more believable.
Georgian presiden't spokeswoman, Manana Manjgaladze
Many citizens of Georgia were very angered with this television station for the report. It really frightened some people. I know I would have been really freaked out if I thought that my country was being invaded! The station posted an apology to all viewers 2 hours following the broadcast. It said it was very sorry for the scare and panic it caused. There was a surprise visit from Georgian president’s spokeswoman, Manana Manjgaladze, that day. She arrived at the television studio to apologize to everyone for the fake information.
August 2008 Russian invasion on Georgia
Back in August 2008 there was an invasion from Russia in Georgia. That is the reason why this scared many because it wasn’t the first time it would have happened. All the citizens that experienced the last invasion were probably more scared than others because they know how bad it could have been. This was a sensitive subject and very emotional to many. It shouldn’t have been a topic to experiment with and mess with peoples minds about. I don’t think it’s right to make a whole country think they’re under attack.
Sources: GoogleImages and CNN
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