The agency had put up a photo of a waterlogged Chennai airport, however, erroneously captioned it as the Sardar Patel International Airport.
The Press Trust of India on Friday issued a clarification apologising as below:
“PTI deeply regrets the error and has terminated the services of the concerned photographer,” the news agency said after Information and Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani called for a corrigendum on Twitter.
The PTI Photo service on Thursday had uploaded a photograph of planes standing in waterlogged hangars at Chennai’s Kamraj airport, but with the caption, “Aeroplanes stand in a queue at the waterlogged Sardar Patel International Airport, after heavy monsoon rains in Ahmedabad on Thursday.”
In times of Social Media, where news needs to be put out fastest, notwithstanding lapses in verifying the same, the sacking of the employee seems to have triggered with a tweet of newly appointed I&B union minister who is tasting success all over again:
Attention: photographs of Chennai floods have been used and passed off as Ahmedabad @PTI_News Kindly alert all news establishments.
— Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) July 28, 2017
It would be prudent @PTI_News to get an explanation as to how this happened.
— Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) July 28, 2017
This leaves the media professionals with absolute no scope of human error, leading to such unpleasant on the spot terminations.
The development caused plenty of conversation on Twitter and most publishers were forced to issue a statement:
We regret that @airnewsalerts Ahmedabad picked up this photo based on erroneous reporting. We will take action. https://t.co/T5AuRpBYi5
— Shashi Shekhar (@shashidigital) July 28, 2017
The PTI photo on #ExpressFrontPage is not of Ahmedabad airport. @PTI_News captioned it wrong & is investigating. We deeply regret the error.
— The Indian Express (@IndianExpress) July 28, 2017