When news broke of "The Matthew McConaughey Paparazzi Surfing Scandal," heretofore referred to as the "incident," the story was shaped in a very particular way: It was the band of surfers on the beach, out to protect their sand and their celebrity leader, that taunted the paparazzi, leading to the skirmish that was caught on video. But what if it was the other way around — the paparazzi actually started the fight that caused a broken nose and $10k in damaged camera equipment? And because the photogs were the ones recording everything, they got to edit the video in such a way that made the beer-drinking surfer fellas look like the culprits? And that everybody who would report on this sort of thing, from mainstream entertainment press to blogs like this one, reported the "paparazzi as victims" version because we're so reliant on these agencies' photos for content?

To the conspiracy theories!

The Malibu Surfside News appears to be the only one interested in investigating the other side of things. Namely, that the paparazzi very well may have been more, or at least equally, responsible for the melee. The press has been running their footage, which is said to be heavily edited to appear in their favor; some paparazzi may have even given this footage away for free, while the outlets airing it "appear to use them without questioning their authenticity."

Nobody is airing the original tapes, likely because they don't have access to them, that shows "some photographers doing the filming reportedly urging their comrades to 'keep going' as 'this is good stuff.'"

Now the area's residents are getting involved, some filing police reports, and the local property owners association that oversees beach access has held a closed door meeting to weight the legal issues involved in the incident.

Says attorney Michael Schwimer, representing one of the locals: "The real story is still coming out. The rest of the media have taken the paparazzi’s spoon-fed story and run with it. They have done no investigations of what happened." The group of surfers, or rather, beachgoers, "may have been pushed so hard that they pushed back," but "the video is so heavily edited to mischaracterize the situation and portray the Malibu residents as aggressors, when in fact it was the opposite.”

And here's where things get ugly: There's a report one of the photographers pulled a knife during the fracas, and "a report that one of the residents at the scene had a wound that required five stitches has been confirmed. And tripods were recorded being used as weapons."

The local sherriff's office is trying to obtain copies of the original tapes to weigh the edited versions against reality. That, and they're worried about the purported follow-up battle on Saturday that's been posted about on various websites.

The guys on the beach involved in the incident, meanwhile, say they have received threatening phone calls from the paparazzi.

Color us unsurprised if all this — the paparazzi were more at fault than previously thought; that they egged each other on to capture great footage; that they edited the video to make themselves look like the victims — is true. And the retaliation, in the form of threatening the beachgoers, isn't exactly a foreign tactic to the notoriously relentless paparazzi industry, which rightly earns its reputation for violence and fearmongering. Which isn't to say the "surfers" on the beach who attacked them aren't guilty of assault or other charges, but this other version of events, the one you didn't see in the edited video footage, is equally likely.