The BBC just had its own Dan Rather moment: a media hoaxer pretending to be from Union Carbide took full responsibility for the Bhopal disaster (via Sreenath Srinivasan):
The BBC had earlier twice run an interview with a man it identified as Dow Chemical spokesman Jude Finisterra, who said the company accepted full responsibility for the disaster 20 years ago in the central Indian city of Bhopal. This would have represented a major policy reversal for Dow Chemical which has said it has no responsibility for the Bhopal disaster… “We also confirm Jude Finisterra is neither an employee nor a spokesperson for Dow.”
Union Carbide accepting responsibility for Bhopal? The Beeb should’ve known that was completely implausible.
it went out on reuters too.
so… what kind of idiot activist would do this and give such false hope to the survivors and their families? can i kick them in the teeth now?
what good was this supposed to do anyone?
idiot activisit
Andrea, am I to assume that when you say this you mean liberal leftist activisit, correct?
I am not wanting to paint with a broad brush (partially because i AM a liberal activist myself – let’s leave out that inflammatory ‘leftist’ part ok?) but this person DOES make liberal activist types look bad… if indeed it were someone on the left.
If it WAS an activist, this was STUPID and not thought through to its actual consequences. But it could just be a prankster with a sick mind with no political affiliation at all.
The quote I took ‘activist’ from was actually ON the Dow website. I assumed that was the official press release and news article, but I was wrong.
Dow put it as “Earlier today, the BBC was the subject of a hoax by an activist who falsely identified himself as a Dow employee” Perhaps they are wanting to pin this on the activists who are trying so hard to get justice to the victims. It would make sense – and the BBC article mentions nothing about who this hoaxer might have been. Silly me, who read this upon waking and believed it without any critical thinking.
And now that I am on the other side of the sleep continuum, my tinfoilbeanieleftist mind wonders if it could have truly BEEN a Dow employee, planning it as a hoax the whole time. But the rational parts left at this time of night doubt it, due to the choice of names. Finisterra? Why didn’t they just go ahead and use Voldemort?
It turns out that the hoax was perpetrated by the same activists who came out with the film ‘The Yes Men’.
They are essentially anti-corporate-globalisation activists. I do understand the hoaxes that they carry out in the film, but the purpose of this bhopal-hoax seems a little less clear to me.
Andrea, I am actually in your line of thinking in terms of “left”. I just get curious when people use terms like “activist”, because it connotes an instant reflexive connection in the brain to any “radical left” activist. Other terms are that I see all the time are “academic elite”, “liberal elite”, “media elite”…which all are now’s connote to the same thing, and especially as being always wrong. One example is the term “Hacker”. It used to mean someone who was inventive in finding solutions to problems, but is now considered a criminal term. I had not seen it in the article, so I wasn’t sure where you got it from; but it makes sense that DOW would use statement like that.
Kurian, thanks for the info.
Forgot to mention this, but to see what I’m talking about, just look at the article that Vinod just posted about someone taking on Roy.
The claim is that the prankster was doing what the company should have done, that is, to take responsibility. By acting it out, they make people see that it is possible, and would actually be a good thing. It wasn’t directed at the families as a cruel hoax, but rather at the public.
disgusting prank