Wednesday, May 17, 2006

bbc's messup

Recently, the BBC decided to interview Gyu Kewney (link to his blog), a technology magazine editor to talk on a court case where Apple computers is the defendant

Unfortunately for the news channel, they ended up interviewing the wrong guy, Guy Goma, an IT guy belonging to the Congo. Newspapers mistakenly reported him as being a taxi driver who had driven up Kewney and was waiting for the fare

Mr Goma is a little confused at the start but when his name and profile is announced, his surprise is priceless - link to video

Karen Bowerman: Guy Kewney is editor of the technology website Newswireless.

Mr Goma: (face of horror)




KB: Hello, good morning to you.

Mr Goma: Good morning.

KB: Were you surprised by this verdict today.

Mr Goma: I am very surprised to see... this verdict to come on me because I was not expecting that. When I came they told me something else and I am coming. So a big surprise anyway.

KB: A big surprise, yeah, yes.

Mr Goma: Exactly.


(transcript source)

Kewney writes about the incident in his blog - only he shows his racist side in it - repeated references to Goma as being black and him being "pink" - Kewney writes that he lost his 2 minutes of fame by not appearing on the BBC's show but by writing in racist tones about the incident, he has damaged his own reputation irreparably - he has been throughly berated on the comment area of his blog

Goma, meanwhile, has turned into something of an internet celebrity, (like William Hung or Mahir Cagri) with people from USA to Russia to Japan linking to him. I wonder when we will see a website dedicated to him coming up? guygoma.com has already been registered on the 16th of May, '06 - the interview was conducted around the 9th - already we can see "remixes" of the interview doing the rounds, you can keep account of most of them by searching for the right tags at youtube

The BBC decided to interview both Guys again and ask them about the interview which has made unexpected celebrities from both

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