BOY BECLOWNED

Albury blogger Dave Gaukroger joins the PP Boyz. In accordance with PP Boy tradition, he beclowns himself in his very first official post:

One of the many wonders of the internet age is the speed with which information can be spread. Which begs the question why just after 1pm today Tim Blair was peddling a story about an apparently inflammatory ad produced by the WWF, when a cursory search would have revealed that the ad was neither requested nor approved by the WWF.

And more from Dave in comments:

The WWF had completely denied any connection to the ad hours before Tim’s post, it was no longer 'developing'.

So it’s game, set and match to Dave (who, incidentally, should look up the definition of "begs the question"; it doesn’t mean what he thinks it means). But wait! It turns out that the story IS developing, with Advertising Age subsequently reporting that the WWF did approve the ad after all:

An obscure ad that ran once in a small Sao Paulo newspaper months ago has come back to haunt DDB Brasil and its conservation client, the WWF in Brazil, in the latest example of the internet exposing a local ad to global condemnation.

Sergio Valente, president of DDB Brasil, said the ad was presented to the WWF in Brazil in December 2008 and approved …

After the WWF appeared to initially deny approving the ad, DDB Brasil and the WWF hammered out a statement posted in Portuguese on both groups’ Brazilian websites … The statement continued, “WWF-Brasil and DDB Brasil reaffirm that the ad never should have been created, approved or run."

AdWeek has more from WWF Brazil:

It was created and approved in late 2008, mistakenly, and was solely the result of lack of experience on the part of a few professionals from both parties involved.

Lack of experience? That might be Dave’s excuse, too. And now WWF in the US is backtracking:

Yesterday, WWF-US issued a statement strongly condemning a print ad that used images related to the events of September 11 and featured the WWF logo. At that time, it was our belief, based on information provided by the WWF organization in Brazil, that the ads were created by an outside agency and were not authorized by anyone at WWF Brazil.

While we are still investigating the circumstances of the ad, it appears that a staff member of WWF Brazil may have provided unauthorized approval to the agency, without the knowledge of the leadership of that organization …

We deeply regret that the information we provided, while given in good faith, was not completely accurate.

Meanwhile Dave is back at his personal site, celebrating his PP success and asking:

The challenge now, as always, is what to write next.

How about a correction?

Update: Buried in an open thread, Dave defends his no-corrections policy, even though the WWF statement in his post has now been corrected by the WWF itself:

Wherever the story of the WWF ad goes from this point forward it does not change the original point that I made in my post, which was that information contrary to what Tim posted was readily available hours before he published, but not initially included.

It doesn't matter to Dave that the information turned out to be wrong.