Scott Hanson on NFL RedZone. Credit: NFL

On Sunday, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter passed away at 96. CBS ran a breaking news graphic for that on the bottom part of the screen during its NFL games, but that graphic was covered up on YouTube TV streaming whiparound show NFL RedZone. So RedZone host Scott Hanson relayed the news of Rosalynn Carter’s death to viewers, but made one crucial mistake. Hanson referred to her as “the wife of the late president Jimmy Carter,” but Carter himself is still alive at 99.

“Our crawl at the bottom of the screen was covering up the CBS News special report. I’ll just pass along to you that Rosalynn Carter, the wife of the late president Jimmy Carter, has died at the age of 96. Rosalynn Carter and Jimmy Carter were married for 77 years.”

Shortly afterwards, Hanson corrected himself:

“By the way, when I just shared the Rosalynn Carter information, I believe I accidentally said the late Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter, still alive, Rosalynn Carter has passed away at the age of 96.”

This led to quite the reactions on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/big_business_/status/1726342479492923466

Mistakes happen, especially when covering that many games at once and when dealing with a notable update from outside the sports realm. And Hanson did correct this relatively quickly; the correction came on the next play of the Bears-Lions game. But this was still a memorable NFL broadcasting error.

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.