And yes, it does sound like Matt Moneymaker is very bitter about the way 'A Current Affair' has treated BFRO, and the story in general.
"It's not an "expedition" even by the loosest definition of the word. It is a low-brow tabloid program's cheapest attempt to make you tune in to more shows. They don't care about anything else. They will fake whatever they need to in order to provide titillating updates. This TV genre is all about spending as little money as possible to grow the ratings.
Do not expect any integrity from A Current Affair. It is not a news program. They are the not "the media". They are the sleaziest sex-and-violence driven tabloid "affairs" program in America."
I think we can all agree that Mr. Moneymaker did a fantastic job of associating the BFRO with the "sleaziest sex-and-violence driven tabloid affairs program in America" - well done!
Here is the rest of the web page, just in case it gets taken down over at the BFRO website....
Updates, News Videos, and Newspaper Articles
* Friday May 7, 2005 -- Quoting another web site: "Ruehl, the crackpot in the Frank Buck hat, portrays himself as bizarre, eccentric moron whacking the air with a stick yelling 'may the cosmos be with you.' [He] promises the Manitoba Village of Norway House will show him a clump of sasquatch hair. ...Then, as the nutcase continues his stick whacking at imaginary things in the air, we are told to 'stay tuned' ..."
If you are in the U.S. and you saw this broadcast, and you happen to have friends on the Norway House Cree Reserve in Manitoba, do call them and tell them what Current Affair is actually saying and showing about them.
Current Affair is taking advantage of the fact tha"t the Cree cannot receive the American broadcast. The tribe may be told or shown something different than what is actually being broadcast in America.
If there is a video crew on the Cree Reserve gathering background footage for these sham updates, then the Cree are within their rights to confiscate their vehicles and equipment and make them leave immediately.
Bobby Clark and the Cree tribal council are hoping to do something beneficial for the tribe with this video. They hope to license it to other television production companies, or sell DVDs with the full footage and comparitive images included. That potential is being chipped away, day by day, by Brett Hudson, among others, as he makes a mockery of the footage, the Wetigo, and the Cree, every day on American television.
Please call or email the Norway House Cree Nation and describe to them what they are not able to see for themselves on television.
* Update - Friday afternoon, May 6, 2005 - The first Current Affair episode, which showed some portions of the footage, can be viewed at (an anonymous web site):
http://64.70.39.65:80/bigfoot_2_small.wmv * Update - Friday, May 6, 2005 - A Current Affair's first "expedition update" was shots of the "expedition team".
Only one of the people in the "expedition team" is actually going up to Manitoba -- the unit producer Brett Hudson.
Dr. Reuhl, the "anomalist" from Glendale (the "footage of the century" guy), was shown as one of the three expedition team members, but he is not in Manitoba with Hudson. Neither is the scantily clad, 40-something, blonde chick with the chainsaw ... The scene of the three of them walking in the woods "in Manitoba" was filmed in Los Angeles. Notice the palm tree in the background.
It's not an "expedition" even by the loosest definition of the word. It is a low-brow tabloid program's cheapest attempt to make you tune in to more shows. They don't care about anything else. They will fake whatever they need to in order to provide titillating updates. This TV genre is all about spending as little money as possible to grow the ratings.
Do not expect any integrity from A Current Affair. It is not a news program. They are the not "the media". They are the sleaziest sex-and-violence driven tabloid "affairs" program in America.
If they need to hoax some footage themselves in Manitoba, they'll do it, especially if the New Jersey office likes the idea. If they have to embarrass the Cree Nation for the sake of ratings, they will do it in a heart beat.
The Norway House Cree may only be thinking only of positive exposure for their community, but they are now at the mercy of tabloid executives in Los Angeles and New Jersey who have less than zero journalistic integrity.
The Cree cannot easily see the American version of A Current Affair, so they may be falsely assuming that it is a respectable program. The tribal council needs to see all these "daily updates" on Current Affair, supposedly taped on their reserve. Producer Brett Hudson already knows he will have to make big promises and even bigger excuses to gain the tribe's co-operation in the short term. He is buying time to keep the show's ratings up for his own career advancement.
The Norway House Cree tribal council should demand their own daily briefings from the Current Affair's "expedition team". The council should demand to know what they are doing each day, and what they plan to broadcast in America each day, and whether there is any modicum of truth to what they are saying or showing on television.
The Current Affair program will create impressions about the Cree Nation that won't soon be forgotten. The story of Bobby Clark's footage and its aftermath will become a permanent part of tribal history. The Cree Nation needs to take control of their history right now.
Even if the "expedition updates" do not mention or show any tribal members, the story in general is about the reserve territory and the animals in it. Anything and everything they will say, show or omit on TV is directly related to the tribe and the reserve, so the council must retain editorial control over the updates.
It should be plainly obvious by now to the Norway House Cree that they cannot rely on a Current Affair producer's assurances when it involves ongoing statements and coverage in televised mass media.
The council must keep an eye on this situation, and must make sure that Current Affair is honest in their updates.
It will be nearly impossible for Current Affair to be honest in their updates, because in an honest bigfoot expedition there won't be splashy new developments to report each day, even when you have a large, experienced group of bigfoot researchers searching a given area.
Brett Hudson will be cooking up and taping bogus or unsubstantive updates each day. Back in L.A. they'll package a lot of talk about what you might see on the next night's broadcast.
Again, their purpose is not a bigfoot expedition of any sort. It's only a gimmick to trick people to tune in again tomorrow.
To do anything meaningful up there, they would have to do two things that they definitely will not do:
1) spend lots of money on people and equipment, and
2) involve the assistance of tribal members or other non-tabloid people who will quickly realize what they are really doing, and object about the daily updates from the Cree Reserve being a total sham.
They may have spent a few thousand dollars to license the footage from Bobby Clark for a few broadcasts, but now they are decreasing the value of the footage day by day.
* Update - Thursday afternoon, May 5, 2005 - Newspaper Article - Toronto - GlobeandMail.com: Global and Mail journalist Oliver Moore gathered reactions to last night's airing. He incorrectly quotes a previously published, important comment about the footage :
Oliver writes:
"[The] director of the U.S.-based Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, has viewed the video and says it points to 'a credible encounter.' In a statement on his organization's website, he says that the subject on the tape is either human or sasquatch, but adds that 'it is not clearly one or the other.'"
The sentence Oliver quoted (from this very this web page, above), does not say the "video" points to a credible encounter. The comment says the "full circumstances of this incident" point to a credible encounter.
The video and the full circumstances are two different things.
The determination about the full circumstances pointing to a credible encounter was made prior to anyone from the BFRO seeing the footage.
The determination could have been made even in the absence of seeing the footage.
The full circumstances relate to the identity of the cameraman, his activity, his position in the community, the terrain, the regional history of sightings, the chain of events following the incident, the reactions from local people who had saw the footage several times, and those who knew the cameraman well.
Those were the same circumstances that encouraged so many major news organizations to jump for this video. The story and the full circumstances pointed to a credible encounter.
Given all the interlaced circumstances, it is more likely than not, in many opinions, that Bobby Clark had a real sighting of a real sasquatch. It is less likely that he executed an elaborate scheme to create all these circumstances. Nor does it seem likely that he was a gullible target for a costume prank.
Among other things, given where the incident occurred and when it occurred, the figure Bobby described seeing, was more likely a sasquatch than a prankster in a costume.
Note: If an incident occurs at the same place in the future, those will be entirely new circumstances, because of the attention the location has received since Bobby's incident.
Bobby's video is not clear enough to clearly exclude either a human or a sasquatch.
The video does support his story about the circumstances of the taping, but the image of the creature in the video does not stand on its own, without a forensic work up, to eliminate a sasquatch or a human.
* Update - Thursday, May 5, 2005 - The Fox program "A Current Affair" aired the clearest portions of the Manitoba footage.
At the end of the segment the announcer mentioned an "expedition" to Manitoba. The announcer said a team was already in Manitoba ready to go into the woods. He claimed there would be daily updates about the team's progress from this point forward.
The BFRO is not involved in their Manitoba "expedition", nor was the trip planned at all.
The unit producer, Brett Hudson, is currently headed up to Norway House to meet with a 3-man video crew from New Jersey. So it's a four man "expedition" with no preparation or expert assistance.
On this web page we'll post daily updates about their daily expedition updates, so you can keep track of them more easily.
If they actually do get something interesting on video while they are up there, then you can bet you'll hear loads about it long before it airs. They definitely won't show new footage in a daily update blurb. They'll build the attention for it several days in advance. You can bet on that.
* Update - Wednesday, May 4, 2005 - The Manitoba footage will be broadcast tonight on "A Current Affair" on Fox Television in the U.S.
Canadians without satellite dishes will not be able to see the footage tonight. The web site for the TV program will show very brief clips of the footage beginning on Thursday.
To look up stations and times for the U.S. broadcast, click here. For the preview print blurb about the segment tonight, click here.
* Update - May 3, 2005 - Newspaper article from the reporter who seems to be following this story most closely: Dawn Walton of the Toronto Globe and Mail (http://www.theglobeandmail.com). Click here for her most recent article.
* Update - May 2, 2005 - The Fox Television program A Current Affair has licensed (i.e. not purchased outright) the Manitoba footage for two broadcasts. Both broadcasts will be the same installment of the program. The footage will likely be airing sometime this week, but that is not certain, according to the folks at Current Affair.
* Discussion about the footage, etc., in Blogcritics.org. Click here for the blog.
* Video news story from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (requires Quicktime player). Click here for the video news story.
* News article from the Globeandmail.com (Toronto, Canada). Click here for that article.
* Video and news article from TV station WWTI Channel 50 (Syracuse, New York). Click here for that article.
* Updates from various newspapers in Canada, including the Winnipeg Sun. Click here for the latest stories in various Canadian newspapers.
* Updates from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation): Click here for links to the latest CBC stories.
* News story (video) from Discovery Channel Canada with the BFRO's Dr. Jeff Meldrum. Click here for the video.
Bobby Clark and the Cree tribal council are hoping to do something beneficial for the tribe with this video. They hope to license it to other television production companies, or sell DVDs with the full footage and comparitive images included. That potential is being chipped away, day by day, by Brett Hudson, among others, as he makes a mockery of the footage, the Wetigo, and the Cree, every day on American television.
I'm not aware of Brett Hudson holding a gun to Bobby Clarke's head and forcing him to sign over the footage for their two shows - according to the Clarke family, they had offers from everyone, including MSN.