News Fail: One Last Time, It Is MR Spock

Leonard Nimoy’s final Star Trek convention didn’t just make news here at TrekMovie and other Trek sites, but was reported by the AP and the mainstream media. Unfortunately one outlet made a familiar mistake when reporting on the final con for Star Trek’s original Mr. Spock. Check it out below.

 

That’s Mr. Spock to you

Fox News fails.

And to clarify, Dr. Benjamin Spock is the famed human pediatrician who wrote the best-selling book "The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care" in 1946. And Mr. Spock is the fictional half-human/half-Vulcan science officer of the Starship Enterprise in the 23rd century, portrayed first by Leonard Nimoy.

 

Thanks to Andy and David.

 

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Fox News is usually pretty accurate about this stuff… Maybe he was given a Doctorates degree in science fiction. LOL
Actually, Doctor Spock has been repeatedly confused with our beloved vulcan.
So no harm done… Touche’

F I R S T

Didn’t know the message of Star Trek was how to look after your kids…or maybe it was

Same people who call it “Star Track”

Oh boy.. Well, Dr. Spock was a great man too, but yes, he was another man entirely.

I’ve noticed other mistakes in the press reporting on Nimoy’s final convention appearance as well. Most of them about Star Trek itself (sometimes misspelled as Stark Trek or Star Trak).

Gotta love mainstream reporting…they have been calling him ‘Dr’ for decades.

Still, nice to see the great and legendary Mr Nimoy getting the attention he deserves outside our Trek circles. Im sure he will be sorely missed at the cons.

Live Long and Prosper Mr Spock

I don’t recall Dr. Spock having two heads, an old one and a young one. Creepy. ;)

Mr. Spock is fictional?!?!?!?!?!

3. Myself – I have a friend who’s a big Star Trek fan, but still calls it Star Track. It drives me crazy.

Even here in germany, highly frequented news portal “SPIEGEL Online” picked up the story:
http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/leute/0,1518,789913,00.html

Live long an prosper Mr. Nimoy…

Interesting choice of pics – Dr. Spock, with his peace necklace, and Mr. Spock, holding a phaser. Not logical to have the guy with the firearm looking after your kids….

WoW Eppic FAIL!!

I was there and he did tell us to live long and prosper.. DROVE CHILLS DOWN MY SPINE AND TEARS IN MY EYES… I will never forget Mr Leonard (Spock) Nimoy’s last convention. One of the best weekends of my life!

“Fox News is usually pretty accurate”

That was hilarious. Thank you.

Leave it to Fox “news”.

Well if it’s on Fox News it MUST be true.

Mr Spock? Isn’t that the one from Star Wars?

#14

You’re thinking of Dumbeldore Calrissian, in command of Deep Star Base 19.

Amazing to me that no one there caught it or knew the difference. Amazing.

@ #4 : That’s DR Nimoy isn’t it???

Fox news accurate? Im assuming that was some form of irony or sarcasm?

Dr. Spock probably gets more media mentions that should be Mr. Spock than the actual doctor has in the last 3 decades.

I really hate it when the media’s ignorance leads to embarrassing things like this. GET IT RIGHT YOUR JOURNALISTIC MORONS!!!!!!!!!!

another mainstream media fail

Let’s just give Leonard an honorary PhD and be done with it.

Not to make excuses for sloppy work, but the error appears to be on the Webmaster more than the actual reporter. Unless it was actual spoken as “doctor” rather than “mister” in the video (which I haven’t seen).

Even dedicated Trek news sites make typos. Some even get an actor’s name wrong as evident in this story (check out how Mr. Spiner is referred as):

http://trekweb.com/articles/2011/10/04/Ptarick-Stewart-Says-He-Has-a-Complete-Collection-of-Next-Generation-Scripts-and-Call-Sheets-and-Wonder-What-to-do-with-Them.shtml

Regards.

Yeah, Bob, but I don’t really consider FOX ‘mainstream’. FOX is the right, while the ‘mainstream’ is the left. I, on the other hand only advocate Mister Spock, who would find this subject ‘Amusingly illogical’

Hats off to both Spock’s. (Leonard Nimoy, and the good Doctor) They both are deserving of my humble respect.

Takes me back to the sixties. There was, on one of the Gerry Anderson Supermarionation shows (Thunderbirds, Fireball XL5, Supercar, Stingray and the rest), a character who some kind of communications officer and always wore headphones. His name was, or he was called, ‘Phones’. We were very young and had crumby old school b&w tv sets with lousy poor quality lo-fi speakers so my brother and I didn’t know whether he was actually called ‘Phones’ or ‘Bones’, whether Kirk called McCoy ‘Bones’ or ‘Phones’ or what! And had a similar confusion with MR. Spock and DR. Spock, who we heard of on tv. And with Dr McCoy in the Trek mix it took us at least a year or so figure things out completely. Again we were pretty young and didn’t really know what headphones were (believe it or not) and weren’t familiar with the term ‘sawbones’. Wow! Hadn’t thought about that bit of twisted confusion in decades. Now I’m having a warm fuzzy nostalgic feeling inside. A kind of time travel. Sorta :-)

Well just think how Dr. Spock must have felt, enduring all those Vulcan hand salutes.

Wow. FOX News got something wrong? Didn’t check their facts? Say it ain’t so…

And surely Mr. Spock has the equivalent of 4 PhDs. At least.

So Spock doesn’t have a doctorate? I always assumed he did, and don’t really see why he couldn’t…

Anyone who’s ever seen “Friday’s Child” knows that Spock’s baby handling skills aren’t good.

He kept on making poor little Leonard James Ackkar cry.

As if Fox news is only news outlet to have a typo …

Many years ago I was a journalism major and had a career in broadcasting before switching gears to technology and military. In those days, reporters were expected to have journalism degrees.

I left the field when it became evident that folks starting to report the news were chosen by how well they looked on a camera and how well they could read a TelePrompter.

This is widespread. Not limited to Fox News by any means.

Bob Orci let’s give Spock a line where he reminds Bones that he isn’t a doctor :)

@ 29 – I agree. Actually, someone at my work dropped a “Dr Spock” and I let it slide but someone else corrected him on it, but I defended him because, I mean, how many Doctorates would Spock have? Probably a hellova lot.

hmmmm… the “classic mistake” about Mr. Spock… it’s not fascinating, definitely!

:-) :-)

Actually, I would love it if in the sequel and/or IDW series Spock mentions that he does have a doctorate or two.

Doesn’t Spock have a PhD in Vulcanism?

badabing.

30. Christopher Roberts – October 5, 2011
Anyone who’s ever seen “Friday’s Child” knows that Spock’s baby handling skills aren’t good.

He kept on making poor little Leonard James Ackkar cry.

“Oochie woochie coochie coo, Mr. Spock….an ancient Earth dialect.”

Sure. In the movie they’re talking about Mr. Spock and you could say like

McCoy: “Mr. Spock has a PhD in SCIENCE.”

Nurse Chapel: “Well…what kind?”

McCoy: “All of it.”

That is hysterical.

Something typical for FOX NEWS Im not suprised

LOL! THAT’S RIGHT, Lawrence. FOX NEWS!! LOL!! YOU’RE RIGHT! WOW. AKA, FIXED NOISE.. the only accurate info on Fox News is the time displayed at the bottom of the screen! Time to get corporate money influence out of the MEDIA and ELECTIONS. that simple.

Anthony, you posted this to lure Bob Orci to the comments, didn’t you. ;)

I’ve actually seen this mistake from a lot of news outlets over the years. Easy enough blunder to make, especially for someone who isn’t into sci-fi, but you’d think if you were paid to write something thousands of people are going to read, you’d do your research a little better…maybe I just have more pride in my work than they do.

@38 aww man I was thinking the same thing!

I have the animated Star Trek series DVD set. He is referred to as “Dr. Spock” in one of the episode descriptions in the insert. So, even the Treksperts can make the same mistake.

Wow. They’re saying Steve Jobs is dead. Sad.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/

Oh My God!! This really happend?! Again?! #21,Bob,you are so right! I am very sorry to hear about Mr.Steve Jobs,he has given us so much!!

While Mr. Spock may be the proper way to refer to him, there is no doubt in mind that he has a (or multiple) doctorates and so I don’t nitpick on this :)

Or maybe someone at Fox is pulling our chains…?

When I was just a wee girl, I remember one of my parents telling me that Dr Spock was a children’s doctor and that MR Spock was a fictional character in Star Trek. I also have a recollection (perhaps I am in error here) that, at first, Star Trek’s Spock was referred to as Dr Spock, then when the producers realised there was a real person with that name, they quickly changed it to MR Spock and he has been known by that great name to this day.

LLAP MR Spock!

LOLOLOLOL. Love the article.

This video covers the Doctor/Mister mistake nicely…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_RuLdKtdtI

:)