back to article The Independent 'live streamed' space vid recorded in 2015

For reasons unknown, on Sunday The Independent "live streamed" footage from space that was more than two years old. The BBC reports the newspaper played International Space Station spacewalk footage from February 2015 on its Facebook page, stopping and taking down the video after being contacted by the Beeb. A spokesperson …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Explanation.

    It's because, much like the Evening Standard, Telegraph and Mail, the Independent doesn't employ any real (i.e. expensive) journalists any more but instead employs young London arts graduates on zero hours contracts (i.e. cheap) who are quite comfortable harvesting non-stories from Twitter, writing about themselves or their little relationships and moaning about how every other generation has ruined theirs but without feeling they need to work to change this, but are far less au fait with actual research and news gathering.

    1. Warm Braw

      Re: Explanation.

      young London arts graduates

      I've noticed a growing amount of US English on their pages suggesting that the content is not even locally recycled. It's also not clear to me whether the Indy100 clickbait ("How garlic bread literally ruined Pete Kay's life") is there to drive traffic to the Independent, or it's the other way round...

      1. wolfetone Silver badge

        Re: Explanation.

        "I've noticed a growing amount of US English on their pages suggesting that the content is not even locally recycled."

        Or they don't know how to change Microsoft Word from US English to UK English?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So if this was fake then what about the moon landings?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      So if this was fake then what about the moon landings?

      It wasn't fake, it was just old. If the same had been the case with the moon landings, then that would mean that man landed on the moon even earlier than claimed, thus making it an even greater achievement. Just sayin'.

      1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

        no , If the same had been the case with the moon landings, it would appear that there had been a very recent, new , live in fact , moon landing.

      2. Joseph Haig

        It wasn't fake, it was just old.

        This isn't the first time a news article has used archive footage to say "this is happening now", typically with alarmist headlines. These instances have rightly been judged as fake even if the photographs are legitimate records of another event.

        Yes, the video is genuine but using it to attract an audience by claiming that it is 'live' is deceitful.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          It was in jest, we all know the moon landings were real, however JFK was still shot by the lizard people, fact.

          1. John G Imrie

            Yer my mate down the pub told me it was in retaliation for invading the Moon and kidnapping their queen, know on earth as Marilyn Monroe

    2. Chemical Bob

      Re: So if this was fake then what about the moon landings?

      As another poster pointed out, old does not equal fake. Therefore, the moon landings happened in 1933. All of them.

  3. wolfetone Silver badge
    Headmaster

    Two wrongs don't make a right

    An interesting article as to how The Independent didn't really do their fact checking to make sure the live stream was an actual live stream, not a re-run.

    But then we stumble across this paragraph:

    "The International Space Station, which US president Ronald Reagan directed NASA to build in 1984, has a mass of 460 tons and orbits 240 miles above Earth. NASA's webpage said that there have been 205 spacewalks since December 1998 – the last was on October 20."

    Reagan directed NASA to build a permanent space station for the USA to inhabit, this was called (not surprisingly) "Space Station Freedom". NASA struggled with it, especially during the Challenger tragedy, and it wasn't until 1993 when the Clinton administration made a deal with the Russians to create the ISS. The core component of the ISS - Zvezda - is Russian, and was intended for use on the Mir 2 program.

    But hey, what's a bit of fact checking when writing articles eh?

    1. a well wisher

      Re: Two wrongs don't make a right

      Americans, re-writing history ? surely not

    2. Chemical Bob
      Coat

      Re: Two wrongs don't make a right

      But two Wrights did make an airplane...

  4. phuzz Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Cloudy

    The live ISS video linked in the article (here) used to rely on UStream, but now seems to have changed names to "IBM Cloud Video"

    Normally I'd decry this name as the worst sort of marketing codswallop, but in this case it's literally showing videos of clouds*, so for once, calling something "Cloud" (or 'cloud based', or 'cloudy') isn't a misnomer!

    * most of the time, at least when the ISS is on the day-lit side of the Earth

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm disgusted at this sort of thing.

    I swear on my pet goldfish's life that *my* live streams will always be truly live, such as this one showing Eugene Cernan's current activity on the moon.

    Apparently he's going to be speaking to President Nixon later this afternoon, so keep your eyes peeled!

  6. Stevie

    Bah!

    Human error?

    I think you meant to say “Intollerable network latency caused by the government’s incompetent management of British Digital Infrastructure maintenance and modernization issues. When will the British Taxpayers receive the digital service to which they entitled?”

    1. John G Imrie

      Re: Bah!

      You have the digital service to which you are entitled, it's just not the one you paid for.

  7. unwarranted triumphalism

    So they admit to lying

    What else are they lying about?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So they admit to lying

      You really do not want to know...

    2. Captain DaFt

      Re: So they admit to lying

      What else are they lying about?

      Lets make it easier and list 5 things that we're sure they're not lying about:

      1. The name of their paper

      2. .....

      3. .....

      OK, OK, so the one thing we know for sure.

  8. DNTP

    I'm sorry this error happened

    Even though I am in no way responsible for it, because it gives me the opportunity to make it up to all of you by posting this link to the Large Hadron Collider live cam:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JYkMhQ9gf8

    1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

      Re: I'm sorry this error happened

      Its gonna be Rick Astley ,isnt it?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    In other news....

    Some Neal Armstrong guy spotted walking around on the moon. The video is pretty crappy, but the internet says its live and from the moon, so it must be true!

    What an age we live in!

  10. Mark 85

    On the bright side..

    At least they haven't tried to pull using video/computer game footage as part of their "real" news.

    1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

      Re: On the bright side..

      At least they haven't tried to pull using video/computer game footage as part of their "real" news.

      Yet..

  11. John Savard

    Famous Quote

    This sort of thing has happened before, and it has always been due to human error.

    1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: Famous Quote

      You're going to tell me that there's a fault in the AE-45 unit next, aren't you.

      No, don't answer. I'm going to take a stress pill and think things over.

  12. LaeMing
    Boffin

    Well technically it was live.

    Provided you were watching from half way to Alpha Centurai.

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