BBC World TV hit by Bhopal hoax

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BBC World television said it was investigating how it had been duped into running an interview on the aftermath of the 1984 Bhopal disaster with a hoaxer claiming to be a spokesman for Dow Chemical.


During the interview, a man purporting to work for Dow Chemical claimed the company would take responsibility for the Bhopal tragedy and was setting up a $12bn compensation fund for victims. The interview ran twice on BBC World and was retracted later in the day by the news organisation.

“This interview was inaccurate, part of an elaborate deception,” the BBC said in statement.

The blunder raised fresh questions over the BBC’s accuracy less than one year after the release of the Hutton report on the suicide of David Kelly, a government scientist, in the run-up to war in Iraq, which was intensely critical of the news group’s editorial standards.

The error also provided the BBC with an unwelcome reminder of the dangers of the use of live and unscripted two-way interviews - a technique that the BBC was urged to avoid following a review of its editorial standards by Ronald Neil, former director of BBC News and Current Affairs.