'Obama is dead': BBC and U.S. networks make embarrassing error reporting Bin Laden's death
By
Daniel Bates
Last updated at 2:20 AM on 3rd May 2011
BBC News accidentally reported that Barack Obama had been killed in its coverage of Osama Bin Laden's death.
On the corporation's website a ticker along the top of the screen was accidentally labelled: 'Obama dead' before being hastily corrected.
The error happened at 11.19pm as the news was just breaking - and minutes before the U.S. President gave a live speech confirming the kill.
See the video below
Mistake: The BBC and U.S television networks incorrectly reported that Barack Obama, right, was dead rather than Osama Bin Laden, left
Blunder: BBC said on their homepage that Obama rather than Osama had died
The BBC however was not alone in making basic errors in its reporting and U.S. TV networks committed a series of embarrassing blunders too.
Shortly after 11pm a reporter for MSNBC Tweeted that it was Mr Obama, not Bin Laden, who was dead.
'Obama shot and killed,' Norah O’Donnell posted on Twitter, citing NBC Chief Pentagon Correspondent Jim Miklaszewski as her source.
She later removed the post.
Wrong man: MSNBC reporter Tweeted that the U.S. President had been killed - rather than the world's most wanted man
'Ding dong the witch is dead': Reality star Kourtney Kardashian makes her feelings known following the announcement of Bin Laden's death
Happy news: Paris Hilton was one of thousands to tweet regarding the terrorist mastermind's death
Republican-supporting Fox News also blundered when its anchor Geraldo Rivera announced that Mr Obama had been shot - as live pictures showed him walking away from giving his speech.
'President Obama, speaking from the East room of the White House, telling the nation and the world President Obama is in fact dead, it was a U.S. led strategic...'
He was interrupted by his female co-anchor and corrected himself, saying: 'I’m sorry, Osama Bin Laden is dead, a strategic operation, they caught him in a mansion outside Islamabad.'
Explore more:
- People:
- Barack Obama,
- Osama Bin Laden
- Organisations:
- Pentagon,
- White House
Let's face it, this time yesterday we would have thought it far more likely that Obama would have been killed, bearing in mind the case of the US congresswoman and all the anti-Obama sentiment growing. The crucial bit here was that the news was just breaking, and a single letter was mis-typed.
- James, England, 02/5/2011 19:48
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