This is a bit late, but the BBC is examining how it got hoaxed Friday on a Bhopal story.

Here is the Guardian's account:

BBC to investigate Bhopal hoax call

Claire Cozens
Friday December 3, 2004

The BBC is to launch an investigation into how it was hoaxed into broadcasting a live television interview with a man falsely claiming to be a spokesman from the chemicals giant Dow Chemical.

Deputy director general Mark Byford has ordered a report into the incident, in which a man calling himself Jude Finisterre claimed Dow Chemical had accepted responsibility for the Bhopal disaster and decided to "liquidate" its Union Carbide subsidiary to pay compensation to the victims of the tragedy.

The BBC said it had apologised to the company over the incident, which it described as an "an elaborate deception", and that lessons would be learned from the embarrassing affair.

It's not like the Beeb reporter didn't try to check out who they were dealing with:

A source at the corporation said the reporter responsible had logged onto the company's website to verify Jude Finisterre's identity and had found a reference to him with a contact number on the media contacts page.

When the reporter called the number, a man calling himself Jude Finisterre answered and said he would be prepared to travel to London to be interviewed if necessary. The interview eventually took place in the BBC's Paris studio.

"This was a really polished stunt. I don't know whether the website was a mirror copy or if the real site was hacked into somehow but it looked completely genuine. At the end of the day it's a really sick thing to do," said the source.

And who should be flogged for being a sick bastard?

The hoaxer, whose real name is Andy Bichlbaum, appeared on Channel 4 News today and described himself as an anti-corporate protestor.

He said he had set up a fake Dow Chemical web site to satirise the company.

Here is the Guardian's original coverage of the hoax: BBC falls for Bhopal 'deception'

Oddly, a search on BBC for Jude Finisterre turned up nothing.

Was it all a dream? Am I being hoaxed? :)