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September 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)

The latest fraudulent Bill Gates interview

TAGS: Microsoft

Though he might be upset that he's the subject of a recent fake interview, Bill Gates can at least take solace in the fact that he's among some elite company in that regard.

The Microsoft founder joins Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Alan Greenspan, Kofi Anan, and several others in being the "subject" of a fake interview written by ex-ABC News consultant Alexis Debat.

That's "fake" as in "utterly false." Not misleading, not out of context, not even an interview with the fake Bill Gates passed off as the real deal, but fake as in completely made up from top to bottom.

The magazine in question, Politique Internationale, has a solid reputation built off 29 years of top-notch reporting -- which makes this fake-interview scandal all the juicier. Politique Internationale has scrubbed all of Debat's articles from its Web site, but a cached copy can be found here (if you don't parlez-vous the Francais, you'll want to take that URL to Babelfish for a translation).

As for the content of the phony interview, it's fairly boilerplate stuff. Plugs for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the importance of vision and perserverence, and so on. There are detours into the world of politics that might have been noteworthy had they actually come from Bill Gates, and the "interview" closes with "Gates" comparing Microsoft and Google to David and Goliath. Curious as to which company is the giant and which is the plucky but determined underdog? Your French may be better than mine, but there's certainly wisdom to be found in Babelfish's profound Pidgin English translation: "B.G.: And Google, of course. That made odd be David vis-a-vis Goliath, for once!"

Of course, this isn't the first time somebody has made up an interview with Gates. Last year, respected Norwegian journalist Bjoern Benkow was accused of faking an encounter with Gates that became the basis of a magazine article.

Posted by Pete Babb on September 13, 2007 03:52 PM

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