Reddit reviews Special Bulletin (TV-Movie) [VHS]

I recall seeing something like this but I thought it was a nuclear threat, googling... yep, there was a made-for-tv movie in 1983 called Special Bulletin.

> A TV reporter and cameraman are taken hostage on a tugboat while covering a workers strike. The demands of the hostage-takers are to collect all the nuclear detonators in the Charleston, SC area so they may be detonated at sea. They threaten to detonate a nuclear device of their own of their demand isn't met.

also,

> TRIVIA: When this film was first broadcast, the network superimposed the word "dramatization" on the bottom of the screen every few minutes and ran disclaimers after every commercial break, to remind people it was only a movie. That didn't stop some people in Charleston, S.C. from panicking anyway.

more insight into the believability of the fake news reporting in reviews at Amazon

> "Special Bulletin" is, intentionally, made to look as much like real television news coverage as possible -- unlike most TV movies, it is shot on video rather than film (In fact, i wouldn't be at all surprised if the image wasn't intentionally slightly degraded to emphasise that it WAS tape, not film). While a lot of people may not actually be able to describe what the differences between a film image and a video image are, they are perceptible to almost anyone, and the mind, consciously or otherwise, identifies the video image with "real TV" and the film image with "movies".

>Another thing that helps to create the rather scary level of verisimilitude in this film is the fact that it is paced like real TV; its rhythm is keyed to commercial breaks, and this enhances the realism of the revreation of the staccato, punchy nature of television news coverage, both when Something Is Happening and in those long stretches when you have had nothing actually new in hours, but you can't just let the story go, if only because the Competition might get a ratings jump on you if something new happens and they're able to go live with it faster than you. (We saw both of these aspects in the recent coverage of the DC-area sniper story.)

edit: here's the first few minutes as aired on NBC - YouTube

and here is a 7 minute clip from near the end of the movie -- WARNING: SPOILERS ;)

also noticed that the Amazon reviews started in 2002, so maybe the DVD came out then and that's when you saw it