Tag Archives: hoaxes

Ono she didn’t

June 8, 2007 – 8:00 am

Our May 30 story headed “Uuurrgh! My Corgi kebab is a bit ruff” said that Yoko Ono was on a radio show and “tasted” dog meat which was being eaten by an animal rights activist.
The report, which was filed to us by several leading press agencies was wholly wrong and Ms Ono did not appear or take part in the show.
We sincerely apologise to Ms Ono for the offence and distress caused to her. Link

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Newspapers | Also tagged , | Comments Off

Soldier spun fake yarn for newspapers

October 16, 2006 – 8:00 am

Two Alabama newspapers ran stories about a soldier who said she joined the Army after her daughter was injured in Iraq. After the stories ran, however, the Army revealed that he story wasn’t true. By then, the Associated press had already picked up one of the stories, sending it over the wire. The Hunstville Times, a paper than ran the story on the front page, has a story about the revelation:

…An Army investigation found that Pfc. Cindra Smith’s
daughter has never been in the military, said Andy Roake of
Redstone public affairs. He said the Army contacted the
family and did a record search using the daughter’s
Social Security number. “Nobody by that name was
found,” Roake said.
Roake also said Smith’s daughter was contacted and she
confirmed that she has not been in the Army.
He said a public affairs representative at the bomb school
on Redstone where Smith was in training originally learned
of Smith’s story about her daughter from talking with
other soldiers. “It was picked up as a good human
interest story the way it was originally told – about her
being influenced by her daughter’s injury to go into
disarming explosive devices,” Roake said.
“It turns out that the key piece was
fabricated.”
Roake said Thursday that Smith is on “hold status”
while the Army determines whether to let her continue bomb
school training or assign her elsewhere. Unless Smith is
court-martialed, any disciplinary action would be
“between the commander and the soldier”
because of privacy laws, Roake said. No decision has been
made on charges, Roake said Thursday.
Smith first told her story to the Redstone Rocket in an
article that appeared in its July 12 edition. Several
military publications and Web sites also published the
story.
She also was featured in a front-page story in The Times on
July 25. At the time, she was training at Redstone to become
an explosive ordnance disposal specialist.
…In the Times story, Smith said, “I want to understand
what happened to my daughter, what we’re fighting for
and why. I want to help other parents not get the same kind
of call I did.”
The Associated Press sent the story to its subscribers and
it was published in several other newspapers and other media
outlets. The Redstone Rocket ran a correction in its Sept.
20 edition, saying that Smith incorrectly stated that her
daughter had served in the Army.
According to the Army, an e-mail it received after the
article was published said Smith’s daughter had never
been in the military.
“We did indeed research (Smith’s) claim that her
daughter was injured in Iraq during Operation (Iraqi)
Freedom, and that her daughter’s injury was one reason
she joined the Army,” said Roake. “After a
review of the facts, it was determined that her daughter had
never been a member of the armed services.”
According to the Army, Smith did not return from an excused
leave on Sept. 12, and was considered “absent without
official leave.” She returned on Sept. 22, the
Army said, and is back with her unit, the Ordnance Munitions
and Electronics Maintenance School (OMEMS) on Redstone.
Roake said the Army “trusts our soldiers to have
integrity and that is one of our key tenets.”
He said the false claims were unfortunate and that every
attempt is made to verify information before it is released.

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Major Errors, Newspapers | Also tagged , | Comments Off

Boy falsely claims to have been in classroom when gunman entered, fools Today, Good Morning America, CBS Early Show etc.

September 28, 2006 – 10:05 pm

A boy named Cassidy Grigg made the rounds of the morning shows Thursday, hitting the Today show on NBC, The Early Show on CBS, and Good Morning America on ABC. He said he was in the Colorado classroom when gunman Duane Morrison entered. Morrison eventually took six girls hostage and murdered one before killing himself. Grigg offered some colorful first-person quotes:

  • “He was just an old guy who came on a mission, and I think he got what
    he wanted.”
  • “I think he just went because he knew he wasn’t going to come out alive.”
  • “You could tell that he wanted the females. He tapped me on the
    shoulder and he told me to leave the room. I told him, “I don’t want to
    leave.”

Unfortunately, Grigg’s mother later revealed that her son was not in the classroom. It’s possible that it all started when the boy told his father he was in the room and the father then relayed this to the Associated Press. At least that’s how this AP correction makes it sound:

In Sept. 27 stories about a deadly school shooting at Platte Canyon High School, The Associated Press quoted parent Tom Grigg giving an account of the ordeal he had heard from his 16-year-old son, Cassidy. Grigg said his son was in the classroom when the gunman picked out his female hostages and the teen had offered to stay with the girls — but the gunman warned him to get out.
The student’s mother said Cassidy Grigg lied.

As is often the case, the boy’s remarkable first person tale was quickly picked up by other outlets, and now the mass corrections/corrective articles have begun. This correction was posted on MSNBC.com:

A story published Thursday morning on MSNBC.com described a 16-year-old boy’s account of a hostage-taking at a Colorado high school in which a gunman fatally shot one girl before killing himself.
The story was based on comments the boy, Cassidy Grigg, made on the “Today” show and to other media outlets. Cassidy said he was in the classroom at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey on Wednesday when the gunman entered.
Cassidy’s mother, Larina Grigg, said Thursday that Cassidy had lied and was actually in another room at the time. Link

WRIC, a television station in Virginia, ran with the story but then received a “withhold” on it and put that online. (A question for TV people out there: would a “withhold” be sent out by the network in a situation like this?) WRIC eventually removed the text from its site. We found this in the Google News cache:

Stations: WITHHOLD all of the items on yesterday’s school shooting in Colorado in which student Cassidy Grigg is quoted as saying he was in the classroom when …

FOX News has a story up, as does the Rocky Mountain News, and many TV affiliates. The boy’s mother told one outlet, “He said, ‘Mom, all those kids were my friends and I just wanted so much to help them. … I guess I just made it up in my mind. I just wanted it to be true so bad’.”

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Major Errors, Online, Television | Also tagged , , , , , | Comments Off

Itsy Bitsy Not So Teenie Error

September 28, 2006 – 8:00 am

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — In a Sept. 26 story about the death of Paul Van Valkenburgh, The Associated Press, relying on information from his wife, erroneously reported that he was co-writer of the 1960 hit song “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” under the name Paul Vance.
The American Society for Composers, Authors and Publishers credits Paul Vance, 76, of Westbury, N.Y., and Lee Pockriss of Bridgewater, Conn., with writing the song.
Van Valkenburgh was 68 and resided in Ormond Beach, Fla. Link

MSNBC has a full AP story about the mistake. Some excerpts:

…On Tuesday, The Associated Press reported on the death of a 68-year-old man named Paul Van Valkenburgh of Ormond Beach, Fla., who claimed to have written the song under the name Paul Vance. The story cited the man’s wife as the source for that claim.
But the music industry’s real Paul Vance, a 76-year-old man from Coral Springs, Fla., is alive and well, and says the other Paul Vance appears to have made the whole thing up.
The Paul Vance who wrote the songs — and provided proof with royalty payments he is still receiving for the hit — said he has been inundated with calls from people who think he died. An owner of racehorses, Vance said two of his horses were scratched from races Wednesday because people thought he had died.
“Do you know what it’s like to have grandchildren calling you and say, ‘Grandpa, you’re still alive?”’ he said in a telephone interview from Coral Springs. “This is not a game. I am who I am and I’m proud of who I am. But these phones don’t stop with people calling thinking I’m dead.”
Rose Leroux, the widow of the man who died, said she was surprised by the disclosure, and “kind of devastated.” She said she had no reason to doubt that her husband — who apparently had some sort of music career when he was younger — was the writer of the famous tune.
She said her husband told her that he never got any royalties because he sold the rights when he was young, around 19. She said that by the time they met almost 40 years ago, he was making his living as a salesman. He later became a painting contractor.
“If this other man says he did it then my husband’s a liar, or he’s a liar,” Leroux said…

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Wire service | Also tagged | Comments Off

Son tells paper his father is dead; father disagrees

September 7, 2006 – 8:00 am

A Tallahassee Democrat story spotted by Romenesko:

Don Spille said he lost almost everything in Hurricane Katrina, including his home in Kenner, La., and his father, who lived in coastal
Mississippi.
The Tallahassee Democrat even ran a front-page story about Spille and his family Tuesday to coincide with the one-year anniversary of Katrina. But there was at least one big problem with Spille’s story – his father, Ed Spille Sr., isn’t dead. He’s alive and well and living in Central Florida.
“Well, I’m talking to you,” Ed Spille Sr. said Thursday when contacted by a reporter. “I’m a hell of a ghost, my friend. Believe me, I’m not dead.”
Don Spille had said his father had been killed when storm surge wiped out his home in Pass Christian, Miss. His dad, however, said that while his home and several others he owned were destroyed, he waited out the hurricane with relatives in Baton Rouge, La. He later moved to Florida.
Ed Spille Sr., who will be 80 later this month, said he doesn’t know why his son would have made up the story.
When contacted Thursday, Don Spille initially claimed that although his biological father was alive, another man whom he considered to be his father had died in Katrina. He later admitted that he had lied, and he apologized.
He said that in the days after Katrina, he couldn’t contact his dad.
After the storm, he was talking about Katrina to someone who got the mistaken impression that Ed Spille Sr. died. Don Spille never cleared up the confusion, and he continued to lie about his dad…
Project H.O.P.E., which helps Katrina victims, put Don Spille in touch with the newspaper for the anniversary article. Julie Chahboune of Project H.O.P.E. said she was shocked to hear that Spille’s father is alive. She said Don Spille had told her the story about his father.
“And he cried while telling it,” she said.
The Tallahassee Democrat learned about the fabrication after receiving an anonymous phone call Thursday…
Ed Spille Sr. displayed a sense of humor about the situation.
“I might be dead to him,” he said. “At 80 years old, I’m dead to a lot of people.”

Original story here.

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Newspapers | Also tagged | Comments Off

Guardian taps Gullible.info for a bogus Leary fact

July 27, 2006 – 8:00 am

A site called Gullible.info that serves up fake trivia recently saw one of its invented factoids end up in a story in the Guardian. Here’s the original June 2005 post from Gullible.info:

LSD guru Timothy Leary claimed to have discovered an extra primary color he referred to as “gendale.”

From there it made its way into a Wikipedia bio of Leary (it has since been removed) and then in April 2006 it showed up in this Guardian article:

He exhorted America to “turn on, tune in and drop out” and claimed to have discovered a new primary colour – which he called gendale. Now Timothy Leary, the eccentric spokesman of the 1960s counter-culture, is to become the subject of a Hollywood movie.

As noted by one of the Gullible.info creators on his blog, the Guardian still hasn’t corrected its article. (His post was linked by a post on Kottke.org, which a reader sent to us.) In his original post about the Guardian error, Kyle Stoneman of Gullible.info made some interesting points:

…I’ve said it for years: the nature of information is changing. The people who don’t fundamentally alter the ways in which they interface with information will find themselves misled. Not just by Gullible.info, but in more serious ways by sites like MartinLutherKing.org — a white supremacist group’s website.
The safe thing to do is assume that any information you find online isn’t necessarily wrong, but assume that it isn’t very valuable. What
does that mean? Basically it means that you shouldn’t use it to make any decisions that could 1) cost you money, 2) damage your health, 3) etc, etc. It could be impeccably accurate, it could be completely off the mark, or it could be somewhere between those points. But the key thing is that you have no way of knowing for sure where on that spectrum it falls.
People are busy. And we need to have information that we can trust.
That’s why we pay for things. We pay for newspapers, we pay for news organizations. We pay these people to verify information for us. We pay them to make sure that it’s correct. Of course just because we pay for something doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily true, but for the most part, it’s a safe assumption to make that it’s probably more true than false. That is to say, on our spectrum, the information they tell us is going to fall more towards the true side…

So, let’s see how long it takes the Guardian to correct its story.

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Newspapers, Online | Also tagged | Comments Off

Will Ferrell is not dead, not paragliding

March 14, 2006 – 5:02 pm

Earlier this morning, a press release was put on i-Newswire, a free online press release distribution service, claiming that Will Ferrell died in a paragliding accident yesterday. Here is the first sentence of the release:

“Los Angeles — Actor Will Ferrell accidentally died in a freak para-gliding accident yesterday in Torey Pines, Southern California.”

We’d love to show you more (see UPDATE below), but that’s the only text available via Google News, which as of now still has it as the top news item if you type in “Will Ferrell.” See our screenshot below. i-Newswire has since removed the release, and clicking on the story link on Google takes you to a page that says, “The content of this press release was removed or moved to another location. Please use our search function to search for the new location or enter a search string to find similar items.” A search on Ferrell’s name comes up empty on the i-Newswire site.So was it a mistake? A hoax? Can we still hope for Bewitched 2 to some day make it into theaters? Yes, probably, and God help us all.
Thanks to the crack team at Hour, Montreal’s alternative weekly, we have a definitive answer on the whereabouts and breathing status of Ferrell. (Disclosure: The editor of this site, Craig Silverman, writes a column for Hour.) As of about 4:10 p.m. EST today Will Ferrell was on set at a movie he is shooting in Montreal. This was reported by a source who was standing just a few feet away from the not-dead actor. Ferrell apparently has all of his limbs and was not wearing paragliding equipment. All signs point to him being alive. Which means this mysterious press release was full of hooey.
We have contacted i-Newswire to get a full version of the release, and to find out who sent it and why. We’ll post any updates. UPDATE: Well, that was fast. We were sent the full text of the release by a couple of people, one of whom identified himself as “the creator” but didn’t offer any more information. After another email exchange, it was revealed they were not “the creator” of the release. Just a helpful reader. We also noticed that Defamer has a post up about this. We’re still hoping for a bit more background from the true creator and/or i-Newswire. In the meantime, here is the full text of the clearly fake and barely copy edited release:

Los Angeles — Actor Will Ferrell accidentally died in a freak para-gliding accident yesterday in Torey Pines, Southern California. The accident apparently happened somewhere near the famed paragliding site after a freak wind gush basically blew Ferrell and his companion towards a wooded area where they lost control before crashing into the dense foilage.
Ferrell and his professional guide, Horacio Gomez of Airtek Paragliding Center attempted the jump at around 2 in the afternoon. According to witnesses, the conditions were basically ideal for para-gliding and the weather did’nt pose a problem at all.
The jump started normally as Ferrell and Gomez glided carefully across the vast area and were seemed headed into the righ direction just before what witnesses said a freak wind somehow blew them off course, causing the paragliding professional Gomez to somehow lose control.
As horrified witnesses looked on, the duo headed straight for the dense woods near the jump off point and crashed at an estimated 60 mph hitting the trees as they hurtled to the ground.
Some friends of the actor who witnessed the accident immediately called up 911. The paramedics vainly attempted to revive the two on their way to the nearby UCSD Thornton Hospital in nearby La Jolla.
The duo suffered major injuries to the head and broken bones that caused the death of the two.
In an interview with Will’s parents who was John W. Ferrell in real life, Mary and Hubert Ferrell said their sonn died while doing one of the things he loved the most.
Will was a graduate of the University of California where he finished his Sports Information Degree. Will was born on July 16, 1968. He was 36.

UPDATE THE SECOND: A story on E! Online gives the background on how this hoax made its way to i-Newswire, and why we’ll likely never know the person behind it:

“The editor thought it sounded like a real press release,” said Eric Borgos, president of Impulse Communications, the parent company of iNewswire. “Maybe the person didn’t know who Will Ferrell was, which didn’t help.”
The Ferrell release went up on iNewswire at about 12 or 1 p.m. (ET), Borgos said. After being asked about it a couple of hours later by inquiring reporters, he said, it was removed from the site.
“The problem is we never really had serious news stories like this before,” Borgos said. “In cases like this in the future, we’ll definitely check it out.”
iNewswire tried, but failed to find the source of the bogus Ferrell story. The trickster, a non-paying customer, used a proxy server–the ISP address can’t be traced, Borgos explained. All that’s known about the anonymous user is that he or she tried, but failed to post about 10-15 other press releases on the site Tuesday, he said, including one that clarified that “Will Ferrell is not really dead.”

As promised, here’s the initial Google News screenshot. Also note that the other top stories about Ferrell have to do with a mistake at the Oscars that saw his name misspelled on a giant screen as he and Steve Carell were presenting an award. All in all, a mistake-ridden couple of weeks for Frank The Tank.

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Press Releases | Comments Off

Media hoaxed by fake Ryan Seacrest interview

February 6, 2006 – 8:00 am

On Thursday the Trentonian newspaper reported about a New Jersey radio DJ who had a heated exchange with Ryan Seacrest about whether or not he was gay. From the story:

“Ryan,” Carton said, “Are you gay?”
Silence.
“Ryan, are you a homosexual?”
With that, Seacrest was headed for the door.
“I can’t stay here, man,” Seacrest said. “I gotta jet.”
The “American Idol” star stormed out of the studio and into the NJ-101.5 offices, but he was coaxed back into the studio with the understanding that the rest of the interview would center on the television show and not on his personal life.
“This was supposed to be about the show, about ‘American Idol,’” Seacrest said when he returned to the air.
Co-host Ray Rossi, an admitted “Idol” fan, was ready to move on, but Carton wouldn’t let up.
“Are you gonna walk out again if I ask you about it?” Carton asked Seacrest.
“Absolutely. I’m outta here,” said Seacrest.
Immediately, Carton asked “Are you gay?” “You know,” Seacrest said, “I don’t know why I trusted you.”
And, again, Seacrest was out the door, this time for good.

Pretty shocking, huh? Well, it was a prank. That wasn’t Seacrest on the air; it was an impersonator. As a story in Newsday noted, this isn’t the first time this radio show has pulled a prank. “During yesterday’s show, Carton recalled the duo’s interview three years ago with singer Bobby Darin, who had died 30 years earlier,” it noted.
“Carton also promised that listeners can expect another scam three years from now.”
As is frequently the case, the story spread from the Trentonian to other papers such as the Philly Daily News and Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Gawker also noted the item. The DJ later revealed the interview was a fake, causing several outlets to run corrections. We’ve noted some below. One problem, however, is that the Trentonian’s original, incorrect story is still on their site without any correction appended. (The paper did run a corrective article, which is excerpted below.)

 Dan Gross would like to apologize to Ryan Seacrest and to Daily News readers for an incorrect report in his Thursday column. It was not
Seacrest, the host of Fox’s “American Idol,” who stormed out of an interview with New Jersey 101.5 Wednesday afternoon. It was an imposter. “Jersey Guys” hosts Craig Carton and Ray Rossi were interviewing a Seacrest impersonator when they repeatedly asked whether the TV star were gay.

The radio hosts yesterday acknowledged the prank, which was covered on the front page of the Trentonian, and also led to a flood of media calls to New Jersey 101.5 yesterday.

“It’s nice to know a radio station can still pull off a stunt like this…We can take anyone down…it’s within our power. The Washington Post wanted to do a front-page story for tomorrow. That’s the power the Jersey Guys have,” the megalomaniacal Carton said.

Carton also poked fun at Gross for the erroneous report and said “I wouldn’t want to be that guy today.” Neither would we.

Seacrest’s publicist Meredith O’Sullivan told Gross yesterday her client has never done an interview with New Jersey 101.5, but had nothing else to say about the radio prank. Link

An item in Friday’s Peach Buzz about American Idol host Ryan Seacrest storming out of a radio interview was incorrect. New Jersey 101.5 did an interview with a man pretending to be Seacrest as a hoax, according to the Philadelphia Daily News, the original source of the information. Link

You know how it didn’t really make sense that Ryan Seacrest would be doing a live, in-studio radio interview in New Jersey? And how it didn’t really make sense why, after the first time he walked out of the studio because the DJ asked about his sexuality, he would have agreed to continue the interview? Yeah, well, it now makes sense that it didn’t make sense. Because it turns out it didn’t actually happen… Link

We were scammed. Local radio station New Jersey-101.5 pulled an on-air prank Wednesday afternoon and we fell for it.
So did other media outlets from New York to Philadelphia and beyond — including The Trentonian.
During Wednesday’s “Jersey Guys” broadcast, host Craig Carton told listeners that television’s “American Idol” host, Ryan Seacrest, was there inside
the Ewing studio as part of a publicity tour for the show.
Yesterday, however, Carton revealed that the whole thing had been a hoax and that he’d enlisted someone with a similar-sounding voice to act the part of Seacrest.
Listeners – and media outlets – were fooled by Wednesday’s fake interview… Link

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Blogs, Major Errors, Newspapers, Radio | Also tagged , , , | Comments

UPDATED: Paper runs false obit mentioning wrong hospital and fake cemetery

January 9, 2006 – 8:00 am

On Thursday, December 29, a man walked into the offices of the Waterloo Cedar-Falls Courier and handed in an obituary for 17 year-old Daniel “D.J.” Reddout. The obituary ran the next day.
As the Courier would later explain, “The item said the West High student passed away at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., Dec. 24, because of complications from surgery.” It also noted he was buried at Osage Memorial Cemetery. The area is home to the Osage Cemetery, but there is no “Osage Memorial Cemetery.” That was the first clue something was wrong. The obit also failed to mention any funeral home. But the paper didn’t check either of these facts, or make a call to confirm the death. So the obit ran. UPDATE: And continues to run. The paper has yet to take it offline. You can read it here.
“But on Tuesday Waterloo police and The Courier received a report that people who know Reddout spotted him eating at the Happy Chef a full
week after his alleged demise. Police continue investigating the matter,” reported the paper in a corrective article published last Wednesday.
The kid was alive and well, which meant the paper was very embarrassed. From the article:

“He was in the restaurant Saturday and had the obituary with him,” said Jeannie Heines, who works at Happy Chef, which also employs one of Reddout’s grandmothers.
Waterloo police learned Tuesday through the Olmsted County Medical Examiner’s Office in Rochester that no one by the name of Reddout had died at the hospital, said Capt. Bruce Arends.
“We have confirmed he is not deceased,” Arends said. “He is alive and well and breathing.”

It turns out that the man who submitted the obit was the boyfriend of the boy’s mother.

Reddout’s mother, Mary Jo Jensen, said her boyfriend, James Snyder, submitted the obituary after she told him her son was ill.
She said it was a case of bad communication.
“I had let my boyfriend know he was doing very, very badly at the hospital, and jokingly I said that he had passed away, and he took upon himself to put the obituary in,” Jensen said.

“It was a mistake, and I apologize for that,” she said.

So it was a bit of a comical mix up, but most newspapers usually follow up with the funeral home or cemetery to verify the information. So there was a lack of proper procedure here. We know, we’re no fun. But the paper is looking into it:

Courier Editor Saul Shapiro said this is the first time in his 23 years that he knows of where the paper ran a false obituary. He said the
newspaper is looking at ways to take additional steps to confirm obituaries brought in by family members.

UPDATE (Jan 11): The paper now has a new policy regarding obituaries, and the police are looking into the matter for potential fraud charges. The paper has an article outlining the police involvement here. It also mentions the paper’s new policy regarding obits:

Because of the false obituary, the Courier will now require that any death notice or obituary submitted directly by a family member or
friend to be verified with official documentation or the name of a funeral home or organization responsible for the services.
Neither the death notice nor the obituary will be published until that information has been provided, under the policy.
The Courier is billing Snyder $50 for the obituary. All obituaries are paid for, and he requested extra information be included, so he was billed higher than the $35 normal fee.

Good stuff. About the police investigation:

Police are seeking people who may have donated memorial payments to a Waterloo family who submitted an obituary for a son that wasn’t dead…
“If anybody did memorials, then we would like to know that,” said Capt. Bruce Arends. “That would constitute a fraud.”
It wasn’t clear if anyone had made memorials, but the obituary asked that memorials be directed to the family.

Big thanks to Dan for keeping us in the loop on this story.

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Major Errors, Newspapers | Also tagged | Comments Off

BBC hoaxed

December 6, 2004 – 10:58 am

BBC TV and Radio fell victim to a hoaxer last week. A man who said his name was Jude Finisterra and claimed to be a spokesman for Dow Chemical went on the air at the Beeb and said Dow was taking full responsibility for the 1984 Bhopal disaster, and had set up a $12 billion fund to compensate victim’s families and survivors. Here’s how the BBC described the Bhopal incident, “Thousands were killed instantly on December 3, 1984 when the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal released 40 tonnes of lethal methyl isocyanate gas into the air, in one of the world’s worst environmental disasters.”

The BBC has since apologized on air for getting taken and also published a “Note” on its website. The BBC publishes both Notes and corrections. Notes are for things of a more serious matter or that require more clarification. This Note quotes BBC World saying it was the victim of “an elaborate deception” that led to the phony interview. Yes Men, the group behind this and other hoaxes, has published their own account of how it was pulled off. It seems their “elaborate” hoax consisted of them responding to an email and sending someone in a suit to a television studio…

Here’s the BBC World apology:

This morning at 9am and 10am (GMT) BBC World ran an interview with someone purporting to be from the Dow chemical company about Bhopal.
This interview was inaccurate, part of an elaborate deception.
The person did not represent the company and we want to make it clear that the information he gave was entirely inaccurate.

And here’s the BBC Radio apology:

Earlier this morning, our news bulletin here (on Radio 2/4/5 Live) carried an extract from an interview with someone purporting to be from the Dow chemical company about the disaster twenty years ago at Bhopal in India.
It is now clear that the person did not, in fact, represent the Dow company and we want to make clear that the information he gave was entirely inaccurate.

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Major Errors, Radio, Television | Also tagged | Comments Off

Would the real Jeff please stand up?

December 2, 2004 – 8:00 am

A Washington Post correction demonstrates one fallibility when interviewing people on the street — journalists never ask them for ID to prove they are who they say they are. (Not that we’re suggesting they do; It’s just hard to protect against folks who willingly mislead the media.)

This reminds us of one priceless example from a New York Post story back in May 2001. One source in an article about financial services companies opening up cafes gave his name as “Heywood Jablome.” Just say it out loud…and read the excerpt below.

The Washington Post correction:

A Nov. 27 Metro article about day laborers gathered outside a Woodbridge convenience store misidentified an employee of the nearby Merchant’s Tire and Auto Center. The employee told a Washington Post reporter his name was Jeff Owens. But store manager Jeff Owen never spoke to a reporter.

And The New York Post’s “blow me” quote from a May 1, 2001 story:

“If I didn’t work a block away, I wouldn’t go in. People who want to trade can do it from their laptop or hand-held device.”
Heywood Jablome, 41, a Manhattan real estate agent, agreed.
“This is a nice-looking store, but I don’t see people coming in here to trade,” he said. “Not the suits’ who work up here. No way!”

By Craig Silverman | Posted in Newspapers | Also tagged , , | Comments Off