Fact Check

TV Reporter Hit by Car

Video shows a television reporter being run over by a car.

Published Dec. 20, 2007

Claim:

Claim:   Video clip shows a television reporter being run over by a car.


Status:   False.

Example:   [Collected on the Internet, November 2007]




A friend showed me this video tonight, and I find it questionable. While it does seem real, I still think that someone edited it somehow.







Origins:   As countless "blooper clips have documented, television reporters working in the field can be vulnerable to mishaps.

As they focus on straight-ahead delivery into a camera, trying to filter out or ignore whatever may be going on around them, they often find themselves oblivious to activities going on behind them, things about fall on them from above, or objects approaching them from the side. Among that last class are automobiles, and more than a few reporters have had close scrapes with vehicles that went off course and hurtled towards where they were standing.

The clip linked above shows not merely a close encounter, but a reporter getting blinded-sided by a car in an accident that surely would have left him dead or severely injured. However, the clip has been misleadingly shortened — the full version reveals it to be a bit of visual trickery created for a commercial promoting winter tires offered by the KwikFit chain of automotive service outlets:



The television reporter shown in the commercial is Dutch weatherman Piet Paulusma, who is quite alive and uninjured.

Last updated:   20 December 2007


David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.

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