On May 19, the United Kingdom—and the rest of the world—was stunned to hear the news of King Charles‘s death. During an episode of The Barry Marsh Show, the British radio station Radio Caroline aired an announcement featuring three prerecorded messages, stating, among other things, that several other media outlets had confirmed the monarch’s death.
The national anthem then played, followed by sixteen long minutes of silence, as if in tribute to King Charles. Regular programming finally resumed before the show’s host realized the mistake and apologized to listeners, confirming that Charles was indeed alive. “I’ve just been informed that we’ve played in error some information a little earlier; I didn’t hear this myself, but it is incorrect, it’s a technical issue, and of course we apologize,” he quickly responded.
On Monday, August 10, Ofcom, the UK media regulator, released a report on the incident, concluding that the station had violated two rules of the Broadcasting Code. The first stipulates that “News, in whatever form, must be reported with due accuracy and presented with due impartiality,” while the second states that “significant mistakes in news should normally be acknowledged and corrected on air quickly. Corrections should be appropriately scheduled.” It described this false announcement as a “very significant inaccuracy” on a matter of “very high public interest.”
But how could such an error have occurred? An employee was performing maintenance on a studio computer when he discovered three files prepared in advance in the event of the king’s death. Radio Caroline “explained that these files are accompanied with ‘a set of strict instructions to presenters and managers’ to follow before being aired, but, out of curiosity, the member of staff played the files, which stopped the stream from the presenter’s remote location, and broadcast the files on air,” reports the Ofcom bulletin, cited by People.
The employee immediately stopped broadcasting the files when he realized his mistake, before rushing out of the office. He eventually apologized after being severely reprimanded. The British radio station assured Ofcom that the files would henceforth be stored on an external hard drive.
Originally published in Vanity Fair France.
