[Media-watch] BBC hoaxed over Bhopal? - Wired/Reuters - 3/11/2004

[Julie-ann Davies]

http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=958245&tw=wn_wire_story

 Friday, December 03, 2004 7:32 a.m. ET

LONDON (Reuters) - BBC World said on Friday that an interview it ran with a 
man it identified as a spokesman for Dow Chemical Co, in which he said the 
U.S. company accepted responsibility for India's Bhopal disaster, was wrong 
and part of an "elaborate deception."

A spokeswoman for Dow Chemical in Switzerland also confirmed that the report 
was wrong. The BBC made a statement apologizing.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 shift for Dow Chemical which has 
said it has no responsibility for the Bhopal disaster.

"This morning at 9 GMT, (and at) 10 GMT, BBC World ran an interview with 
someone purporting to be from the Dow Chemical Company about Bhopal," the 
BBC said in a news bulletin.

"This information was inaccurate, part of an elaborate deception. The person 
did not represent the company. We want to make it clear the information he 
gave was entirely inaccurate."

BBC World had earlier said the interview took place in Paris. It was aired 
on the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster, when more than 3,500 died 
after lethal gas escaped from a chemical plant owned by Union Carbide, now a 
subsidiary of Dow Chemical.

"We apologize to Dow and to anyone who watched the interview who may have 
been misled by it," it said in a statement read out in a subsequent news 
bulletin. "Of course the BBC is investigating how the deception happened."

A Dow spokeswoman, speaking from Switzerland, told BBC World that Finisterra 
was not a Dow employee.

"Dow confirms there was no basis whatsoever for this report," Marina Ashanin 
said. "We also confirm Jude Finisterra is neither an employee nor a 
spokesperson for Dow."

"The bottom-line is this is not true," a spokesman for Dow Chemical in 
Zurich told Reuters. A spokesman for Union Carbide also told Reuters the 
report was false.

Copyright © 2003 Reuters Limited.