, so much so that at 1am London time, fifteen hours after the story went live, it remained the most popular story worldwide, according to BBC Views Online’s on Most Popular Now stats.
As is their way with anti-US stories, BBC Views Online enthusiastically reported:
The world’s richest model has reportedly reacted in her own way to the sliding value of the US dollar – by refusing to be paid in the currency.
Gisele Bündchen is said to be keen to avoid the US currency because of uncertainty over its strength.
The Brazilian, thought to have earned about $30m in the year to June, prefers to be paid in euros, her sister and manager told the Bloomberg news agency.
The BBC’s most popular worldwide story – and it’s wrong.
The only problem is that, it turns out, Supermodel Gisele Not in Buffett’s Bear Camp on Dollar After All, Manager Tells CNBC:
This morning a Bloomberg story got picked up by several news outlets, including Warren Buffett Watch, reporting that Bundchen had asking to be paid in euros rather than dollars due to uncertainty about the U.S. currency’s future. That would have put her in the same camp as Buffett, who’s been bearish on the dollar for awhile now.
But just a few minutes ago, CNBC Squawk Box producer Stephanie Landsman spoke by telephone with Anne Nelson, Bundchen’s manager. Nelson tells us reports that Gisele wants to be paid in euros are “false.” Nelson’s take: “Some idiot in Brazil reported something just to make news.”
Nelson points out that Gisele lives in New York City, and thus needs U.S. dollars for her big-city lifestyle.
Those pesky wire-services, again – though at least this one gets credited – presumably because the BBC wasn’t willing to take responsibility for standing up such a dubious sounding story themselves.
Bündchen’s manager’s statement of the obvious (to anyone in possesion of half-a-brain and access to Google that is), that “Gisele lives in New York City, and thus needs U.S. dollars for her big-city lifestyle”, rather gives the game away, at least for any reporter who wants to honestly report the finer details of the remuneration of a supermodel (who’s not exactly a household name, at least not in this household), as distinct from reporters keen to rush into print with an anti US-dollar story.
I wonder if we’re going to see the BBC publish a correction just as prominently for just as long, or if we’ll have to make do with a small after-thought of a correction on the story page, long after the damage is done and most people have moved on…
Update: Supermodel Gisele not dumping dollars for euros, her sister says:
“This information is not true … I do not recall ever having said anything that could be interpreted in that way.”
The company that handles publicity and contract negotiations for Gisele in Brazil, Image Net, has demanded a retraction from various media outlets, Patricia Buendchen said.
Thank you to Biased BBC reader moonbat nibbler for the links.
Some nine hours after Anne Nelson rebutted these false reports…
http://www.cnbc.com/id/21641711
…the utterly clueless BBC’s World Business Report is still reporting this piece of fiction.
BBC – breath-takingly cr*p.
If I am rich, I can be paid in euros in a foreign account and convert to dollars when I need the money. If the dollar slips, I will just have more dollars for my euros… So this is absolutely not contradictory…
Anonymous, OK so this may not be a contradiction BUT is the story TRUE?
The concensus on the wires now appears to be that it isn’t but the BBC has not retracted or corrected the story.
The mis-spelling of Procter & Gamble by the BBC (since corrected) is caught by google news using the search:
gisele bundchen “proctor”
The seven news outlets that seem to have taken their lead from the BBC, including spelling mistake: Vogue UK, The Times, The Sun, Foreign Policy Passport, Femalefirst.co.uk, Metro, China Daily!
Sorry but how is a story about the dollar’s problems anti-American?
I know for a fact that if I was given an option I would rather be paid in Sterling or Euros right now.
I can assure you this is nothing to do with my veiws of America and everything to do with getting the best return for myself.
It seems fair for the BBC to point this out. I don’t think they went OTT with their coverage in this instance.
Just depends if you are expecting that the dollar will go down further or not.
Rockall – the point is that the BBC (like any other actual news organisation, but not like the hypothetical unbiased news organisation that it pretends to be) reports stories that it likes much more often than stories that it doesn’t like. The weak dollar is a “good” BBC story, because it implies that the US economy is weak, Bush’s economic policies are a failure, rampant capitalism isn’t so hot, thereby boosting all those cuddlier social democratic economic policies that the wonderful EU goes in for and which the BBC laps up with a spoon. America doing badly economically is a very reportable story for progressives.
When the boot is on the other foot, one of the BBC’s favourite reasons for being slow in the uptake in reporting things it doesn’t like is that the BBC being a serious and responsible news organisation doesn’t report rumours. It likes to confirm the facts first.
Except that as this story shows, the BBC is perfectly happy spreading rumours. It just has to be the right kind of rumour.
There’s no difference between the way the BBC behaves, and the way the Daily Mail behaves. Some stories they leave out, or only report late and small after much “checking” (and trawling for refutations by t’other side.) Other stories leap to the front page straight from the pressure group press release. The two organisations just have different preferences as to which stories to select and reject.
to be fair, Sky News were also reporting this yesterday evening, with Jeff Randall commenting that she was being smart. Obviously irrelevant if the story now turns out to be untrue.
And the story is in the London edition of the Telegraph this morning – which Guess would not have gone to print till after midnight.
So they’re all crap! But we knew this all along. However, I can choose not to read the Mail or the Telegraph and, accordingly, not pay for them. Unfortunately, I still have to pay for the inaccuracies and bias on the BBC whether I want to or not.
Mail = wrong : OK I can choose not to buy.
Telegraph = wrong : OK I can choose not to buy.
Sky = wrong : OK I can choose not to subscribe
BBC = wrong : Tango Sierra pay up under penalty of law, a fine or imprisonment, choice = none.
The BBC option is not acceptable.
Gisele’s pr company is now asking for a retraction from “various media outlets”:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iVglu7_BQL46Pf3Pgcnk56NcpCBg
The BBC have updated their story now:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7081122.stm
You have to read past the title and the first three paragraphs (still factually inaccurate) though. The timestamp is wrong too.
Bloomberg, the original English language source, have updated their article, spinning backwards haphazardly:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aT.RVJhkBFL0&refer=home
Substantive parts:
“the Sept. 12 issue of the 1 million-circulation Brazilian weekly Veja, which quoted Bundchen’s preference to be paid in euros for representing Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble Co.’s Pantene hair products.”
and:
“It’s false that she only takes euros,” Patricia Bundchen said in a phone interview on Nov. 7 from Porto Alegre, Brazil. “It’s a Brazilian contract, in reais,” she said of the Pantene contract.
So, we know the initial report is nonsense. Bloomberg are still trying to spin this as a ‘currency prowess of a supermodel’ story despite the currency being different to that initially alleged. A Brazilian supermodel signing a Brazilian contract is an astute currency speculator because they accept money in Brazilian reais?!