Idaho news station draws national attention, issues apology after erroneous tweet

An Idaho television news station has garnered national attention and issued an apology via Twitter after tweeting out a story about a bank robbery using an unrelated image of a well-known Black Lives Matter activist.

On Friday, local news station KBOI tweeted “Would-be robber arrives early at banks to find doors locked,” linking to an article about an Iowa incident. The tweet featured a photo of educator and BLM activist DeRay Mckesson on his knees as police officers placed him in handcuffs.

“I haven’t been anywhere near a bank robbery. FYI.” Mckesson responded, quoting the now-deleted KBOI post in his own tweet.

KBOI later issued an apology on Twitter, tagging the Baltimore-based activist in the post.

“We messed up. We mistakenly tweeted a photo of @deray with an unrelated story link about a bank robbery. We at KBOI are very sorry,” the station posted.

Mckesson again responded, saying that while he appreciated the retraction, it still wasn’t clear how the incorrect image was chosen to begin with. He told the Statesman that KBOI has not reached out to him directly about the situation and emphasized that the origin of the error was still a mystery to him. KBOI on Sunday had not responded to requests from the Statesman for comment.

Despite the station’s apology, some on the social media site still demanded to know what led to error. Over the weekend, some slammed the station online, peppering unrelated posts with comments criticizing KBOI over the tweet.

The erroneous tweet earned KBOI writeups in national and online publications including Business Insider, Uproxx, Heavy., Raw Story and Fusion. Some blamed KBOI’s parent company, Sinclair.

Others blamed Idaho altogether.

This story was originally published July 16, 2017 at 1:34 PM with the headline "Idaho news station draws national attention, issues apology after erroneous tweet."