BBC Mistakenly Airs Image of Former Jets DB George Floyd Instead of Slain Minneapolis Resident

In a 24-hour news cycle, television networks have developed an occasional unfortunate of making significant mistakes live on-air when reporting vitally important stories. Doing this in the age of social media means the mistakes live on forever and statements have to be issued right away.

This has happened to the BBC during a report on the late George Floyd. In a segment about the Houston funeral held for the man infamously killed by police in Minneapolis, the Britain-based network used a photograph of the wrong George Floyd -- one who formerly played defensive back for the New York Jets.

The New York Jets' George Floyd only appeared in a handful of games for the team in the early 1980s. To the network's credit, they quickly issued a statement regarding the mistake.

The damage, sadly, was already done.

This is a major mistake, and the decision-makers brhind th blunder have to answer some hard questions about how it was able to happen in the first place. The picture was up for about five seconds, which is a lifetime on television, after all.