Earlier this week, Belgian television ran a fictional story about the breakup of the country. Unfortunately, many people didn’t realize it was fiction:
BRUSSELS, Dec. 14 — Suddenly and shockingly, Belgium came to an end.
State television broke into regular programming late Wednesday with an urgent bulletin: The Flemish-speaking half of the country had declared independence, and the king and queen had fled. Grainy pictures from a military airport showed dark silhouettes of a royal entourage boarding a plane.
Only after a half-hour did the station flash the message: “This is fiction.”
It was too late. Many Belgians had already fallen for the hoax.
Frantic viewers flooded the call center of the RTBF network, which broadcast the stunt. Embassies called Belgian authorities to find out what was going on, while foreign journalists scrambled to get confirmation.
“Ambassadors who were worried asked what they had to tell their capitals,” said Anne-Marie Lizin, president of the Senate. “This fiction was seen as a reality, and it created a catastrophic image of the country.”
(…)
RTBF’s phony newscast reported that the “Flemish parliament has unilaterally declared the independence of Flanders” and that King Albert II and Queen Paola had left on the first air force plane available.
The broadcast showed jubilant demonstrators outside the legislature waving the yellow-and-black Flemish flag with its lion rampant. A small crowd of monarchists rallied outside the royal palace waving the black, yellow and red Belgian flag.
Reporting that the royal family had fled did not go down well at the palace, which said in a statement that the hoax was in “bad taste.”
Oops.
