Metro swallows bulletproof baby hoax

The Metro reports on a fantastic new product from Bullet Proof Baby, a firm offering, amongst other things, a buggy that can withstand automatic weapons fire from just a few meters away. The Metro gushes:

Proving that a new invention worked was a matter of life and death for Stella Stevenson. Or at least it was for her 18-month-old son when she placed him in a newly designed bullet-proof buggy and opened fire at him with an automatic rifle. After a ten-second burst, the American picked up the unharmed infant and smiled for the camera.

Err, except there’s no such company as Bullet Proof Baby - it’s just some mildly entertaining viral marketing for an upcoming action film. I’m sure if I confronted the Metro about this they’d claim they knew all along (ho ho, those scallywags!). But the truth nobody bothered to do even a cursory check before printing this fluff. You’d think if your story was going to be printed in over a million papers, a 30-second fact check wouldn’t be too much to ask.

2 comments August 23rd, 2007