Obama
Photo: AP
Osama
Reuters
CNN apologizes for Obama, Osama mix-up
Network heads Monday night story on hunt for head terrorist with headline 'Where's Obama?'; apology issued on CNN's morning show
The CNN news network apologized Tuesday for a mistaken headline that caused an embarrassing mix-up between the world's most wanted terrorist and a potential candidate for the 2008 US presidential elections
CNN apologized Tuesday for mistakenly promoting a story on the search for Osama bin Laden with the headline "Where's Obama?"
Barack Obama, of course, is not a terrorist, but rather a senator from Illinois who is a rising star among the Democratic Party, and may be considering a run for the White House in 2008.
The blunder occurred Monday evening on Wolf Blitzer's news show "The Situation Room." Bloggers hurried to inform the network of the mistake, which was quickly corrected.
Tuesday, CNN issued an apology during its morning show, with both anchor Soledad O'Brien and Blitzer himself offering separate apologies. The network referred to the headline a "bad typographical error" by its graphics department.
"We want to apologize for that bad typo," Blitzer said. "We also want to apologize personally to Sen. Barack Obama. I'm going to be making a call to him later this morning to offer my personal apology."
A spokesman for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama said the apology was accepted.
"Though I'd note that the `s' and `b' keys aren't all that close to each other, I assume it was just an unfortunate mistake, and don't think there was any truly malicious intent," Vieto said.
Associated Press contributed to this report
