https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141004/07211128727/mythical-almost-certainly-made-up-legend-walter-obrien-continues-to-grow.shtml
By Mike Masnick
Techdirt.com
Oct 6th 2014
A few weeks ago, we wrote about "Walter O'Brien," the guy who is supposed
to be the basis of the CBS TV show Scorpion. The problem we had was that
O'Brien made a ton of absolutely fantastical claims and, after doing a
little fact checking, none of them seemed to check out. At all. Since a
few people brought this up, let me make it clear: I have no issue with
exaggerating on a TV show for the sake of good entertainment. I don't even
mind bogus claims like "based on a true story" because, hey, Fargo was
pretty awesome. If that's all that was going on, it wouldn't be a big deal
and everyone could get on with their lives.
What concerns me about the bogus Walter O'Brien story is twofold: (1)
Gullible reporters simply repeat his claims without even the slightest bit
of skepticism, which is just shameful reporting and (2) O'Brien and his
friends aren't just making a TV show: they're trying to spin the TV show
(which, as far as we can tell has close to no basis in reality) into a way
to promote O'Brien's "business" with claims that are wholly unbelievable
-- in that, literally, I don't think most of the claims are true. It
worries me that some people will take the TV show's inflated claims at
face value and think that throwing gobs of money O'Brien's way will get
them the clearly exaggerated solutions the show is pitching.
Last week, O'Brien appeared with Scorpion producer (and Justin Bieber
manager) Scooter Braun at the "Techmanity"* conference in San Jose, and I
went to the show hoping to talk to O'Brien and/or the producers of the
show to see if they could help clear up the inconsistencies in his story
(many of which we detailed in the original post). Instead, despite
multiple requests, I was denied an opportunity to interview them before or
afterward. They did appear to show up right before going on stage, and
then I was told they had to leave immediately after (though, at least one
other conference attendee posted a selfie with O'Brien well over an hour
after O'Brien got off stage). Despite the agenda specifically promising a
Q&A with O'Brien and multiple producers, there was no Q&A (and those other
producers weren't even there). A microphone stand that had been present
for Q&A during earlier sessions was removed prior to the panel, so it was
clear that there was no intention of a Q&A at all.
Instead, there were just more questionable claims from O'Brien, on a panel
moderated by Fast Company's Chuck Salter, an "award winning" reporter who
didn't seem interested in challenging a single claim from O'Brien, taking
them all at face value. Fast Company, which co-produced the conference,
and thus, perhaps, had business reasons for suppressing all skepticism,
also wrote a big article again repeating the O'Brien myth, though that
article appears to have been dropped behind a paywall.
[...]
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