The BBC has issued an apology after journalists at the network interviewed an impostor claiming to be Sen. Cory Booker on the air.
BBC Newshour has published the apology on its website, and said that the network interviewed the impostor on air last Friday in what “appears to be a deliberate hoax.”
BBC noted that the interview only ran once on its network, and no audio or video of the interview appears to have been released or shared online. However, the Daily Mail reports that the interview appears to have been syndicated in the U.S., and several Twitter users pointed out that the BBC may be speaking to the wrong person.
The Daily Mail reports that broadcasters and the impostor discussed the U.S.’s relationship with Saudi Arabia in the wake of an ODNI report that held Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman responsible for the 2018 death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
“In our Newshour radio programme on Friday, a man claiming to be Senator Cory Booker was interviewed in what appears to be a deliberate hoax,” the BBC’s statement read. “We have apologised to Senator Booker and are looking into what went wrong to make sure it doesn't happen again. The interview only aired once at 2000 GMT on Newshour on Friday 26 February and has not appeared elsewhere.”
