In an epic live television blunder, a news channel announced the death of Pope Francis on Christmas Day. The blunder was made by ITV news presenter and journalist Kylie Pentelow while she was reporting live on Pope’s annual Christmas Day message to people at Peter’s Square, Vatican City.
Pentelow accidentally announced the death of the religious leader when he was urging people to get vaccinated.
During his address, the 87-year-old talked about vaccine equality across all countries and also requested more and more people to get vaccinated.
While, the news presenter said, “He said that vaccines should be made available to those most in need.” She mistakenly added, “His death was announced.”
Kylie Pentelow immediately realised the blunder and corrected herself by adding, “eh, excuse me.”
TV broadcaster Scott Bryan shared the video clip of the incident on his Twitter handle. “ITV just announced the death of The Pope by accident,” he wrote.
Check Scott Bryan’s tweets here
“Someone get this newsreader a drink STAT. We all make mistakes,” Bryan wrote in another Tweet.
https://twitter.com/scottygb/status/1474797758712365062?
https://twitter.com/scottygb/status/1474799036506984451?
The blunder was only two-second long, however, it was huge enough for the journalist to get severely trolled.
Some users slammed the new channel by saying “This was the most serious mistake they ever heard from ITV.”
https://twitter.com/Ami98953561/status/1474892509054656514?
Meanwhile, a news executive producer said, “I once killed Bob Dylan in a similar fashion.”
https://twitter.com/prmcmenamin/status/1474798445856763916?
Some users even compared the live TV blunder with BBC reporter’s Tweet, when he mistakenly tweeted that the Queen had died.
reminds me of when a junior bbc producer in broadcasting house tweeted that the qu££n had died because she hadn't realised that what was going on around her was a regular roy@l obit rehearsal. there was a bit of a
kerfuffle over it, as far as i recall😂— fluffie cloude (@fluffiecloude) December 25, 2021
In 2015, a BBC reporter mistakenly tweeted about the death of Queen Elizabeth. This news blunder had hurt the sentiments of many.
The 85-year-old Pope also spoke about people’s personal and professional relationships, as reported by Mirror. He discussed the crises, conflicts, and disagreements across the globe.
Pope Francis is considered one of the most powerful and influential religious leaders in the world.