A red-faced BBC News is apologizing profusely – with a characteristic stiff upper lip – for flashing footage of Lakers star LeBron James in a report about the death of iconic basketball great Kobe Bryant.
The 41-year-old NBA player died along with eight others, including his 13-year-old daughter Gianna in a private helicopter crash outside Los Angeles Sunday morning.
When reporting the tragedy, BBC News aired footage of James – the name clearly visible on his jersey – as the narrator spoke of Bryant’s prowess and accomplishments on the court.
“I genuinely cannot believe that the actual BBC News at 10 just did this,” tweeted BuzzFeed News deputy world news editor Matthew Champion in London. “This really happened.”
Not long afterward, BBC News editor apologized, with BBC News At Ten editor Paul Royall tweeting out an “oops” and an apology.
“In tonight’s coverage of the death of Kobe Bryant on BBC News Ten, we mistakenly used pictures of LeBron James in one section of the report,” Royall wrote. “We apologize for this human error, which fell below our usual standards on the program.”
But that came too late to stem the disbelief, mockery, and outrage that ensued.
Comments ranged from calling it outright racist to Brit-splaining that they don’t do basketball, so they may not know much about the game or its players.
“For anyone who asks how this can be possible,” wrote one commenter, noting that when it comes to people of color (POC), “it’s possible in a society where POC are structurally, discriminated against, made invisible, cut out of pictures, underrepresented, misrepresented, bullied and shamed in the media, the list goes on.”
