Breitbart isn’t exactly high on the list of trusted journalistic sources, or at least it shouldn’t be, but sometimes they outdo themselves. This is one of those times.
Breitbart London posted a story that was ostensibly about Jet Ski migrant smuggling in Europe. (It’s probably still out there if you really want to read it.) Unfortunately, for their featured photo, they went with a picture of a German soccer star:
https://twitter.com/InnerPartisan/status/899168554767056896
Whoops. Obviously, insinuating that a world famous athlete is involved in some kind of criminal activity is not the best way to do business for any online outlet, and as The Independent notes, they issued a correction on the matter:
The article entitled “Spanish Police Crack Gang Moving Migrants on Jet-Skis” originally appeared on Sunday with a picture of the recently-retired German star on a jet-ski before it was swiftly changed.
It is understood the picture, rather than being taken off the Spanish coast, was instead from the 2014 World Cup in Brazil when the German national team were enjoying a day off.
An editor’s note on the article read: “A previous version of this story included an image of Lukas Podolski on a jet ski. This image appeared as an illustration of a person on a jet ski. Breitbart London wishes to apologise to Mr. Podolski.
“There is no evidence Mr. Podolski is either a migrant gang member, nor being human trafficked. We wish Mr. Podolski well in his recently announced international retirement.”
When even Breitbart admits its editorial standards were breached, you know something went wrong. But hey, now that they have their man main back in the control room, surely things will tighten up post haste.
[Independent]
About Jay Rigdon
Jay is a columnist at Awful Announcing. He is not a strong swimmer. He is probably talking to a dog in a silly voice at this very moment.