Kobe Bryant death: BBC apologises for TV news footage mistake
The BBC has issued an apology after footage of LeBron James was mistakenly used in its coverage of the death of his fellow basketball star Kobe Bryant on Sunday's News At Ten programme.
Bryant, 41, died alongside his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others when a helicopter they were travelling in crashed in Calabasas, California.
Fans were furious at the blunder.
One person tweeted: "BBC news using footage of LeBron James instead of Kobe Bryant is absolutely disgraceful."
"BBC News apologising for showing a picture of Lebron James and not Kobi Bryant! I guess we all look the same! That is very poor journalism at its best," another added.
A third said: "Shocking from the BBC using footage of Lebron James in the Kobe tribute....how do you make such a mistake!!"
At the end of the bulletin, newsreader Reeta Chakrabarti said: "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.
Later, 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."
