Mistaken identity in Bondi Junction stabbing leaves UTS student upset; Channel 7 issues apology.
The Seven Network has issued an apology for mistakenly identifying a University of Technology Sydney (UTS) student as the perpetrator of a violent knife attack at Westfield Bondi Junction on Saturday that resulted in six deaths and 17 injuries.
The Australian reports the incorrect identification was broadcast on Sunrise and posted on Seven’s YouTube channel on Sunday morning. However, New South Wales Police subsequently confirmed that the assailant was Joel Cauchi, a man from Queensland, who was fatally shot by a female officer during the incident.
The student, who had also been wrongly targeted in viral social media posts, expressed his disappointment,
“It’s extremely disappointing to me to see people mindlessly propagating misinformation like this without even the slightest thought put into fact checking,”
“But what’s even more disappointing to me is a major news network doing this, using my name without waiting for a statement from police to verify this or going out to try and verify it themselves.“
A spokesperson for Seven described the error as a result of human mistake, which was quickly escalated and addressed.
“The mistake was human error. It was escalated immediately and rectified. Seven sincerely apologises for the error,” stated the spokesperson.
This incident adds to a series of misidentifications by Seven, including a 2022 error where another man was falsely accused of abducting Cleo Smith, leading to a defamation settlement. In 2021, the network mistakenly identified an individual as responsible for a fatal hit-and-run in Casula, and also mislabelled a horse coach as conman Jackson Stern.
Additionally, the erroneous identification related to the Bondi Junction attack appeared in comment sections on the social media platforms of Network 10, news.com.au, Nine News, and the Daily Mail.
A spokesperson for 10 addressed the oversight in their comment moderation, stating,
“It is network policy for comments to be disabled for stories of this nature. Unfortunately, they were inadvertently left on. As soon as this was noticed, comments were disabled.
We sincerely apologise for any distress this has caused.“
SOURCE: The Australian
It seems Seven’s News room is too eager to get the scoop, at the cost of verified accuracy. Endemic behaviour over many years that hasn’t been addressed.
This is disgraceful. No media should be releasing names of anyone until full identification is given through proper channels like the police. Heads should roll over this HUGE F up. That poor innocent man hope he sues the hell out of channel 7.
This is disgraceful. No media should be releasing names of anyone until full identification is given through proper channels like the police. Heads should roll over this HUGE F up. That poor innocent man hope he sues the hell out of channel 7.
It’s surprising that “professional journalists” seemingly failed to perform their due diligence.
Hope he sues Channel 7 etc for tens of millions of dollars. Once its on the internet it is very hard to remove.
Next podcast should be interesting
Rob will still find a way to defend 7
This is why Channel 7 News is going from Bad to Terribly Worse!!
Don’t understand how People can watch them, Channel 7 keep Stuffing Everything Up & do False/Fake News, can’t even do their Basic Job.
And how Dumb/Ridiculous are People Viewers In Perth & Adelaide keep Watching their False News!!
Channel 9 Easily has the Best News & Exclusives!! May I also say Channel 10 even has Better News than Channel 7 Rubbish..