When a company gets a black eye, do you titter,
or pray, 'There but for the Grace of God go I'?

In my experience, there are two kinds of speechwriters in the world:

1. Those who will begin to smile and giggle as soon as they come across a story like the one below. They'll begin to chortle before they get to the details of the story.

2. Those who will become angry and begin to grumble預lso, before they get to the details.

Last week the London Guardian reported on a stunt pulled by a political protester who represented himself as the spokesman for Union Carbide parent company Dow Chemicals, on an interview with BBC World.

The gist of the story: On the 20th anniversary of the Union Carbide Bhopal disaster, a chemical leak that killed 15,000 people, the BBC interviewed a "spokesman" named "Jude Finisterra," from "Dow," who said the company was going to liquidate Union Carbide and pay out $12 billion in compensation to Bhopal's victims. "Today is a great day for all of us at Dow and I think for millions of people around the world as well," Finisterra said. "Today I am very happy to announce that for the first time Dow is accepting full responsibility for the Bhopal catastrophe."

In the two hours it took the BBC to discover and announce that Finisterra was actually Andy Bichlbaum and that Dow Chemical was not liquidating Union Carbide, taking responsibility for Bhopal or, most importantly, paying $12 billion in compensation. Meanwhile, the company had lost some $2 billion in value from its share price, an amount it regained after the hoax was revealed.

"Tee hee!" says the former journalist who can't shake his distrust of and contempt for big institutions even though he is working for one.

"Goddamn!" says the professional communicator who knows how vulnerable a company is to biased reporters and publicity-seeking protesters.

It may have been a Dow speechwriter of the latter ilk who included, in a keynote speech last week by Dow director general Mark Thompson, a reference to the importance of "the trustworthiness and accuracy of our journalism ... which is why we take last week's Bhopal hoax so seriously."

On the other hand, what about the importance of clever dissenters who know how to use the elaborate institutional structures of business and media against to make important points? That's another reason to take the hoax seriously, yes?

Gigglers and grumblers: Let us learn to appreciate one another.

Our organizations need us both.