Pele playing in 1960. (Credit: AFP/SCANPIX via Flickr)
CNN apologized after wrongly reporting on one of its Twitter accounts that soccer star Pele died.
CNN’s New Day tweeted, “#BREAKING: Brazilian former soccer player Pele dies at 74.” New Day is CNN’s morning show, featuring Chris Cuomo, Kate Bolduan, and Michaela Pereira.
Circa‘s editor-in-chief Anthony De Rosa captured a screenshot of the original tweet, The Hollywood Reporter and Russian site T Journal noted.
CNN inaccurately declares Brazilian soccer legend Pele dead pic.twitter.com/H2tjM36xnq
— Anthony De Rosa (@AntDeRosa) March 28, 2014
In follow-up tweets, CNN’s New Day reported that it deleted the tweet in question and that Pele is “alive and very well.”
An erroneous tweet about former Brazilian soccer player Pele has now been deleted by @Newday. Apologies to Pele & our followers.
— CNN Public Relations (@CNNPR) March 28, 2014
We deleted an earlier and erroneous tweet on this topic. We regret the error and thank our followers for the feedback.
— New Day (@NewDay) March 28, 2014
The tweet was an error, not a hack, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which confirmed with a CNN spokesperson the account hadn’t been hacked.
CNN also tweeted an apology on its public relations Twitter account, Breitbart.com noted.
@AntDeRosa @ShastaCNN Get your facts right! In my tweet I say clearly in Portuguese that twitter is reporting Pele is dead. true/not?
— Isa Soares (@IsaCNN) March 28, 2014
CNN’s Brazil bureau chief Shasta Darlington also tweeted that Pele was alive. She wrote that there were “rumors” of his death, but interestingly didn’t mention CNN had itself reported Pele was dead.
Contrary to rumors, @Pele very much alive according to his press representative in Sao Paulo
— Shasta Darlington (@ShastaCNN) March 28, 2014
Another interesting Twitter discussion about the error came from CNN International reporter Isa Soares, who tweeted:
CNN’s @ShastaCNN in Sao Paulo has spoken to #Pele’s representative who says he is alive and very well. People need to stop making up lies
— Isa Soares (@IsaCNN) March 28, 2014
Anthony De Rosa responded to Soares, noting the obvious – that CNN itself was responsible for reporting on the fake death.
@IsaCNN @ShastaCNN your network spread the lie
— Anthony De Rosa (@AntDeRosa) March 28, 2014
Soares rebutted that, writing
@AntDeRosa @ShastaCNN Get your facts right! In my tweet I say clearly in Portuguese that twitter is reporting Pele is dead. true/not?
— Isa Soares (@IsaCNN) March 28, 2014
De Rosa then tweeted to her a photo of CNN reporting the false news, and she hasn’t apparently responded to this.
iMediaEthics has written to CNN asking how the error occurred. We’ll update with any additional information.
