I have published a correction on AxaMonitor regarding the story I published about Axanar’s new headquarters outside Atlanta.
In an interview published today on Fan Film Factor, Axanar CEO Alec Peters revealed the true location of Axanar’s new facility in Lawrenceville, Georgia, not the Gainesville location I reported on yesterday.
Did I get bamboozled? Yep, I sure did. Comeuppance has been served and I’m ready to eat crow.
That happens sometimes to journalists, and the first thing we’re taught is admit our error. So I’m admitting mine: I fell for a scheme in which these folks, who don’t like to have what they do made public, got together and coordinated an intricate plan to fool me.
And I was fooled, fed false information by sources controlled by Alec Peters.
I apologize to those who’ve come to rely on me as a source of coverage about the Axanar debacle — the crowdfunding that paid for a never-used studio instead of the film fans wanted made, the draconian guidelines now imposed on all fan productions, the supporters who gave tens, hundreds, even thousands of dollars in good faith to a group of people hoping for a really great fan film, getting nothing in return.
Oh, yeah. Some got a few little patches.
Now, Alec Peters — who takes no responsibility for his mismanagement of the money people entrusted to him — instead believes it’s worth his time to conspire to fool a reporter, to lie. Is that really a victory to be proud of?
But remember who else you lied to. You lied to everyone about the details of the warehouse upon which I relied upon for authentication about this story. To “get” me, you had to lie.
I’m sure some of Peters’ supporters are OK with that because they don’t like my coverage either. But if 300 supporters were all he was able to muster from the vaunted 15,000 at his command, I’m guessing a lot more aren’t OK with Peters continuing to publicly deceive them.
So who turns out looking worse in this situation? The reporter who was taken for a ride, or the people who lied to the whole world in order to do it? Yes, Alec Peters, you fooled me. “Big win for Axanar.” But all you proved is you’re willing to lie to score points in some imagined game, placing a higher priority on making a fool of a reporter instead of producing the film you promised your supporters years ago, just as you placed a higher priority on the tremendously expensive studio you just lost than on producing Axanar.
Which is why I’ll continue to cover this story until the day you stop trying to fool people for your own gratification. I’ll certainly be more careful about my sourcing in the future, now that I know the lengths to which you’ll go to hide the truth.
I apologize to my readers for letting them down, for getting caught up in yet another Axanar scheme. What I won’t apologize for is my intent to continue to cover this story. Axanar’s behavior trying to fool a reporter for some cheap laughs and finger-pointing just proves why it’s necessary to continue to shine a light on what they do.
