CNN had to apologize on-air after the news network misidentified a woman sitting in the audience of the Republican debate as Nancy Reagan.
The networked showed a woman on air with “Nancy Reagan Visiting Debate Hall” written on the bottom of the screen.
“94-year-old Nancy Reagan looking fierce for a woman of ANY age. #CNNDebate,” CNN video producer Brenna Williams tweeted along with a screengrab of CNN’s footage. Problem is, the woman wasn’t former First Lady Nancy Reagan.
https://twitter.com/brennawilliams/status/644256811642691586
Air around seven minutes later, CNN realized something was amiss.
“By the way, we want to apologize to our viewers. We thought we saw Nancy Reagan here in the hall. We are now told that was not Nancy Reagan,” CNN’s lead political anchor Wolf Blitzer said on air. “We’re going to find out what exactly happened, but that’s an apology from all of us here.”
CNN is hosting the second round of presidential debates between Republican candidates at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. Like Fox News did in the first debate last month, the field was split into two groups.
Former New York governor George Pataki, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham made up the earlier debate field, having ranked the lowest in the latest national polls.
