Kobe Bryant death: BBC apologises for TV news footage mistake
- Published
The BBC has apologised after footage of LeBron James was mistakenly included in its coverage of the death of his fellow basketball star Kobe Bryant.
Footage of James beating Bryant's career points tally appeared in the BBC's News At Ten programme on Sunday.
But the voiceover did not explain why viewers were seeing James on screen at that stage, rather than Bryant.
Viewers pointed out the error online, criticising the BBC for confusing the two prominent black basketball stars.
Bryant, a five-time NBA champion, spent his entire 20 year career playing for the Los Angeles Lakers, before he retired in 2016.
The footage included in the programme featured James, who also plays for the LA Lakers, surpassing Bryant to become the NBA's third-highest scorer of all time.
Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, were killed alongside seven others, when his private helicopter crashed in southern California on Sunday morning.
At the end of the bulletin, newsreader Reeta Chakrabarti apologised for the earlier on-screen error saying: "In our coverage of the death of Kobe Bryant, in one section of the report, we mistakenly showed pictures of another basketball player, LeBron James.
"We do apologise for the error," she added.
Within 15 minutes, Paul Royall, editor of BBC News at Six and Ten, posted an apology on Twitter, saying the programme "mistakenly used pictures of LeBron James in one section of the report".
He added: "We apologise for this human error which fell below our usual standards on the programme."
In tonight’s coverage of the death of Kobe Bryant on #BBCNewsTen we mistakenly used pictures of LeBron James in one section of the report. We apologise for this human error which fell below our usual standards on the programme.
— Paul Royall (@paulroyall) January 26, 2020
Many viewers took to Twitter to condemn the error. Nadine White, a Huffington Post journalist who previously worked with the Voice newspaper, said that "this only adds to our collective grief at this time."
Deeply unfortunate mix up from BBC. They got two big, Black men confused and featured Lebron James instead of late Kobe Bryant in this news segment. This only adds to our collective grief at this time. Has a correction and apology been issued yet? Shame. pic.twitter.com/jCUejPKWc4
— Nadine White (@Nadine_Writes) January 26, 2020
TV and radio producer Geoff Jein pointed out the footage had shown James' surname on the back of his basketball shirt.
Who cut this????? BBC news using footage of Lebron James instead of Kobe Bryant in their obit!!!!!
— Geoff Jein (@geoffjein) January 26, 2020
IT EVEN SAYS JAMES ON HIS SHIRT pic.twitter.com/QaWpivLDji
And Sky News newsreader Mark Austin also pointed out the error.
Dear @BBCNews ... that was LeBron James in your Ten o’clock News piece not Kobe Bryant
— Mark Austin (@markaustintv) January 26, 2020
It is not the first time a BBC programme has apologised for confusing two sports stars.
In July 2018, BBC Newsnight apologised for showing footage of Pakistan bowler Wasim Akram instead of his former teammate-turned-politician Imran Khan.
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