Someone is getting fired!
Local Chicago news station WGN sparked controversy online after using a symbol of Nazi abuse for their Yom Kippur story!
On Tuesday, the news station was highlighting the Jewish holiday — where Jews fast and atone for their sins.
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But viewers understandably took offense upon noticing that the image used for the story was of the yellow Star of David badge — which Jewish people were forced to wear during the Holocaust!
This unfortunate error sparked outrage on Twitter, as users wrote to the news station:
Holy crap, @WGNNews, this is your stock photo for a Jewish holiday?? Nobody thought that’s a bad choice of photo? pic.twitter.com/z7BNuvGybS
— Marc Karlinsky (@MarcKarlinsky) September 23, 2015
Sooo.. someone’s getting fired at WGN… pic.twitter.com/SrSt8arVCa
— Mikaela (@mikaelajannae) September 23, 2015
WGN swiftly apologized, saying they regrettably “failed to recognize” the offensive symbol, and are “extremely embarrassed.” The following statement was issued on their website:
“Last night we ran a story to recognize Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. The artwork chosen to accompany the story came from a graphics image bank. Regrettably, we failed to recognize that the image was an offensive Nazi symbol. We are extremely embarrassed and we deeply apologize to our viewers and to the Jewish community for this mistake. Ignorance is not an excuse. Please know we are reviewing our in house policies and changes have already been made to make sure a hurtful oversight like this never happens again. Thank you for your understanding. We promise to do better.”
Sounds like WGN needs to update their graphics image bank before Hanukkah starts! Check out the clip (below) to see the fail!
[Image via YouTube.]