The Dow of Satire
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Dow of Satire
Date:
Mon, 9 Dec 2002 07:49:53 -0500
From:
Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide
Regulation
cc: Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov
Wednesday, December 4, 2002 - PR Watch - The Dow of Satire
During the past two days, PR Watch received emails alerting us of an unbelievable press release from Dow Chemical. "DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION," read the release headline. "Many individuals within Dow feel tremendous sorrow about the Bhopal disaster," the release read. However, Dow has "responsibilities to our shareholders and our industry colleagues that make action on Bhopal impossible." The release directs people to the website www.dow-chemical.com for Dow's statement on Bhopal. But what readers were really being directed to was a clever spoof of the real Dow website <http://www.dow.com>. According to the straight-faced spoof, "Cleaning up Bhopal could open up Dow to greater liability than the moral weight of this issue can justify from a profitability standpoint. As we look at the situation today, few people outside of India really remember Bhopal, or that Union Carbide was at fault for the accident. Even fewer realize that Dow bought Union Carbide." The joke must not have gone over well at Dow, because at the time of this posting the site had been taken down.
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/index.html
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