Breaking News Drill Causes ABC Twitter Slip Up

This tweet is only a drill.

The “ABC World News” feed tweeted this morning: “BREAKING: President Obama will name Elena Kagan his nominee for the Supreme Court, @jaketapper reports.” It would have big news if it were true. But it wasn’t, as Jake Tapper pointed out himself on Twitter, prompting an explanation and apology from the WN feed.

As Mediaite details, the flub was the result of an “internal drill” in which Tapper and others were reporting the fictitious story over an ABC News loudspeaker. Even though this emergency news preparedness drill was identified as such, it seems the info was still accidentally broadcast to WN’s 7,000+ followers by someone with an itchy twitter finger.

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