We Admit It: Fred Meyer Sock Sale News Story Was Faked In Our Studio
/You know that TV news story that seemed to be dominating local airwaves right before Black Friday--the one where the reporter on a live remote encounters gale force winds blowing hundreds of socks?
Yeah, well it wasn't real.
We should know. We helped create the in-studio news footage for the fraudulent segment, knowing all along that it was intended to deceive gullible viewers.
Well, we're not on our deathbed, but we feel like it's time to come forward with the truth anyway.
The whole thing was just an elaborate ruse to sell socks on Black Friday at Fred Meyer and Kroger stores. If there's a grain of truth to the whole thing, it's that they have an unusually large selection of high quality socks at once-a-year savings.
Otherwise, you should know that all the news reporters and anchors were portrayed by actors. And the sock storm supposedly threatening the whole region was nothing more than a giant fan with handfuls of socks tossed in front of it.
We do admit it was kind of fun to mock up news studio lighting and do the sound the old-school-way with wired lav mics. But at the same time we're terribly ashamed we fooled all those poor people into loading their belongings into their cars and fleeing town, or wasting their money on sock storm insurance.
Full disclosure. Mea culpa. Conscience cleared.
BTW, we would feel so much better about ourselves if you would look at the production stills below and watch one of the video clips, which show how great our fake news set looked.