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Associated Mess: AP Reports Christopher Walken Impersonator’s Natalie Wood Quotes As News

by Tommy Christopher | 7:55 pm, November 18th, 2011

» 17 comments

There’s a new development in the now-reopened 1981 drowning death of actress Natalie Wood. The Associated Press reported Friday afternoon that actor Christopher Walken told a DC sports radio station that “there was drinking and shouting on the boat and that then ‘there was tragedy.’”

Unfortunately, the quote was actually from one of the show’s producers, doing an apparently convincing Christopher Walken impression.

Christopher Walken was, indeed, a guest aboard the yacht “Splendour” the night of Wood’s tragic death, ruled an accidental drowning at the time, but now reopened on the basis of new infor,ation that authorities haven’t revealed.

Walken wasn’t, however, a guest on ESPN 980 Friday, when an AP reporter thought he heard Walken speaking about the case.

According to Ryan Kearney of local DC news blog TBD, the Walken character is a regular bit on ESPN980‘s Tony Korneiser Show, but took a bit of a wrong turn when the Wood case was reopened:

“We do this bit every week,” 980′s director of programming, Chuck Sapienza, told me. “It’s one of my producers, Marc Sterne, and he does this every week, picking fantasy football games.” Except that this week, due to the reopening of the Wood case, Sterne took some extra license with his impersonation.

When I spoke with Associated Press weekend editor Tom Strong at 3:40 p.m., he was unaware that the AP had been fooled. He promised to call me back.

Kearny didn’t get that call back, but the AP did run a correction that, somewhat disingenuously, put the onus on the station, saying, “The station now says that it was a hoax involving a station employee who was impersonating Walken.”

They have since issued another correction to more accurately reflect what happened, that “An Associated Press reporter mistook what was actually a station employee’s impersonation of Walken as a real interview.”

In the reporter’s defense, it doesn’t sound as though Sterne really gave any clues that he was doing a comedy bit, at least not while he was listening. Had Sterne’s Walken demanded more cowbell, or offered the host some Skittles™, all of this could have been avoided.

Associated Press, Christopher Walken, Natalie Wood, Ryan Kearney, The Associated Press

Anonymous

Gotta love the AP. at least they did by Taliban photos this time.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Arx-Ferrum/100001094401306 Arx Ferrum

No matter Wagner and Walken are among the rich Hollywood elite. These boys are gonna be innocent no matter what the truth is.
Sheik Yerbouti

The AP has grown pathetic in their dissemination of news, if they’re not trying to slam the President they’re getting their facts mixed up.
Just some Blow Hard…

BREAKING NEWS!!!

Walken is not scarred by Frankenstein, but by marsupials do…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xKXbOVbAvE
Anonymous

Tommy C is the last person at Mediaite who should be making note of journalistic incompetence.
Anonymous

Slam the POTUS? What planet do you live on?
http://games-survival.com Justplaythegame

I always thought wood caught wagner and walken in some sex position and just couldn’t take it any more.. ofcourse no one cares or will be in trouble for some hollywood problem.. it’s all about Holly..wood.. next unreal people story please.
Lessolitaire

You must be loaded up on that FRIDAY NITE HOOCH! No one is allowed to speak ill of His Royale Uselessness.
Anonymous

An Associated Press reporter mistook an impersonator of actor Christopher Walken on a sports-talk radio program for Walken himself, leading the news cooperative to include comments mistakenly attributed to the actor in its …more}
http://currentbox.blogspot.com/2011/11/tell-tmz-christopher-walken-not-suspect.html
Anonymous

That’s why we call them “lamestream media”. They make stuff up, and peddle it for “news”.
Czer2006

The AP is no longer the trusted source it used to be in the past. Over the years, they’ve let ideaology take over rather than reporting the facts. Every AP article has some bias or slant these days or so it seems. You can’t trust the political coverage at all. And that sloppy level of reporting eventually seeps into all other coverage. This Walken matter is a prime example. Shame on the Associated Press.
Anonymous

The reporter in question was suspended when he Tweeted that he was listening to Christopher Walken on the radio.
Kid Dynamite

If only Natalie Wood had had … MORE COWBELL.
Anonymous

It’s actually quite astounding to see the AP issue both a correction and explanation at all, let alone in such a short time. I’ve been dealing with them for years – and except for the Michigan AP office back about 8 years ago, even getting to the AP on a factual error in one of their stories involves going through a phone maze, which ends in a nonresponsive brick wall. Earlier this week, both a Dutch news site and the AP put out a story on a new twist in the country’s ongoing euthanasia issues. Both contained factual errors, I blogged and wrote about both and contacted them. I received a reply from the Dutch publication, thanking me for calling attention to the problem and they’ve corrected the content. Still no reply from the AP. Blog entry about it here: http://bit.ly/sxn2Et and will update tonite or tomorrow.
Anonymous

Nancy Grace has just announced that based on her evaluation of all of the evidence, she can prove that Casey Anthony murdered Natalie Wood! When it was called to Nancy’s attention that Casey Anthony had been born almost five (5) years after the tragic death of Natalie, Nancy said that she was not going do fall for some “cheap defense attorney trick”!
Billwhit1357

The AP is more like down on their knees with hand on zipper, in front of Obambi, slamming him they do not! AP, MSM, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, all are on Husseins side, certainly not on We, the Peoples side.
Grendelprime

One does wonder how Betty and Veronica are doing these days.