BBC News has had a another meltodown when a the show suffered a slightly awkward gaffe after airing a segment showing a reporter swearing.
On Thursday, anchor Matthew Amroliwala was hosting when he gave an update on the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s mass data breach, which has seen 10,000 officers’ details published by mistake.
While there had been plans to air clips of a press conference on the matter, something went wrong and it didn’t play, leading the presenter to then announce he was crossing to journalist Charlotte Gallagher.
‘Well, apologies we can’t bring you that clip, but our correspondent Charlotte Gallagher has this report,’ he shared with viewers.
Although Charlotte was meant to give an update on what had happened, it pretty quickly became clear there had been another hitch.
In the clip, she began speaking but started her sentence over, suggesting the clip was a pre-recorded video that had gone to air by mistake.
BBC News presenter Matthew Amroliwala tried to hold things together but you can get a view of what they presenter really thinks.
‘As the public face of the PSNI, Chief Constable Simon Byrne…as the public face of the PSNI, Chief Constable Simon Byrne has been under an incredible amount of pressure over this data breach,’ she said.
Things then got even more awkward as the national broadcaster then went on to air some colourful language.
‘Today he said he was “deeply sorry”, describing the breach as, of…I can’t get my words out…f***,’ she said.
The reporter could then be seen pursing her lips and rolling her tongue over her teeth in frustration.
A clip showing correspondent Charlotte Gallagher swearing was accidently played (Picture: BBC)
The sound then cut out and the channel cut back to the studio, where Matthew jumped in: ‘Well, apologies there for that confusion.
‘That was our correspondent Charlotte Gallagher, she’s monitoring what’s been happening there at that news conference.
‘We will get more on that here in the next little while.’
Not willing to let the moment slide, some viewers took to social media to speak about what they’d just witnessed.
As one person explained, it was ‘every live broadcaster’s worst nightmare’.
Another guessed the journalist would be ‘mortified’ one she realised what had been broadcast.
Around 20 minutes later, the anchor also issued an on-air apology.
‘Now, before we move on, I want to apologise for the bad language a little earlier you may have heard in a clip,’ he said.
‘We were playing you the outcome of the press conference [where] we heard from the Chief Constable of Northern Ireland’s police force, that data breach, and we went to our correspondent.’
He said they had accidently played a clip with ‘bad language’, apologising to viewers for ‘what you just heard’.
wtxnews.co.uk has contacted BBC for comment, but haven’t had a response yet.
Things went from bad to worse!
