BBC Apologizes For Mistakenly Showing Footage Of LeBron James In Report On Kobe Bryant’s Death

Jake Kanter
·2 min read

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The BBC has apologized for mistakenly including footage of LeBron James in an obituary on Kobe Bryant, just hours after the decorated LA Lakers basketball star died in a helicopter crash on Sunday.

BBC One’s flagship 10PM bulletin led on Bryant’s death and 30-seconds into Chris Buckler’s report, footage of James on the basketball court was flashed up on screen. The clip was of James beating Bryant’s career points tally, but no context was offered to viewers.

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The error — which was still available to view on BBC streaming service iPlayer at the time of publication — was immediately spotted by viewers, who voiced their dismay on Twitter.

Paul Royall, the editor of the 10PM bulletin, was quick to respond to the concerns on Twitter. He said the footage of James used in the report was a result of “human error.”

“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,” Royall tweeted.

Newsreader Reeta Chakrabarti also ended the bulletin with an apology. “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 apologize for the error,” she said.

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