Business Insider was on the wrong side of the John Edwards verdict earlier today, flashing a “guilty” banner on its site and publishing a story that wrongly attributed the incorrect verdict to ABC News. Here’s the offending story and banner, via Talking Points Memo’s Ryan J. Reilly:
I contacted Henry Blodget, Business Insider’s editor in chief and CEO, earlier this afternoon to ask how this happened.
“We misinterpreted this tweet from ABC News, which followed Jake Tapper’s tweet that the verdict was in,” he said by email.
I had also asked if they had prepared an Edwards “guilty” banner for the site in advance. “No banners prepared in advance,” he said. “Just our screw-up. We caught it fast.”
The site has now added a “note” to the bottom of its Edwards verdict story:
We momentarily misinterpreted some tweets at 2:36 p.m. and incorrectly reported that Edwards was found guilty. ABCNews never reported that Edwards was found guilty. We apologize for the mistake.
Reuters deputy social media editor Matthew Keys also tweeted a screenshot of CNN’s homepage wrongly declaring Edwards guilty:
