Hip-Hop Artist Stormzy Mistaken for Manchester United Player
In today’s climate of fake news and unverified sources, one of the most important aspects of journalism is fact-checking. Failing to verify information before it goes to print can quickly cause a publication to lose credibility, post a retraction, or lose readership.
Dublin’s The Herald is learning that lesson the hard way as it mistakenly used an image of Hip-Hop artist Stormzy instead of a photo of recently signed Manchester United player Romelu Lukaku.
The Herald have mistaken Stormzy for Romelu Lukaku on their backpage. pic.twitter.com/UH1vIpzdPc
— Darren Cleary (@RadioCleary) July 10, 2017
While mistakes like this can be common for writers, the goof made it past the editors of the paper as well. The Herald sent out a tweet apologizing for the error and to the real Lukaku, but something like this should not have been missed if all parties were following the process.
Did the Herald photo editor not wonder where a photo of Lukaku in a United top came from??
— Sean Noone (@spooneman) July 10, 2017
Apology: Picture error in today’s Herald https://t.co/ntHGweV9pq pic.twitter.com/kf6J8IXnKO
— The Herald (@HeraldNewsdesk) July 10, 2017
.Hi @RomeluLukaku9, we owe you a very sincere apology https://t.co/ntHGweV9pq
— The Herald (@HeraldNewsdesk) July 10, 2017
Stormzy took to social media claiming that he didn’t find this mistake funny, and the Herald issued him an apology also.
.Sincere apologies, we don’t think it’s funny either https://t.co/ntHGweV9pq
— The Herald (@HeraldNewsdesk) July 10, 2017
