BBC girl who ‘ killed off ’ the Queen
A BBC journalist is facing disciplinary proceedings after she sparked a global media storm by mistakenly announcing the Queen’s death on Twitter.
The Corporation was forced to apologise for the ‘breaking news’ announcement, which claimed the Queen had passed away after being hospitalised in London.
Ahmen Khawaja’s Twitter account issued a message shortly after 9.30am saying: ‘BREAKING: Queen Elizabeth is being treated at King Edward 7th Hospital in London. Statement due shortly.’
By sheer coincidence, the Queen was in hospital at the time, but only for a routine health check-up. A later misspelt tweet read: ‘Queen Elizabrth [sic] has died.’
Miss Khawaja, who produces a current affairs show for BBC Urdu, deleted the rogue messages as soon as she realised her error – but not before the story had been picked up by news outlets around the world.
American television network CNN, India’s Hindustan Times, and Bild, the respected German newspaper, all covered the story, and were forced to backtrack when they realised the tweet had been sent by mistake.
Miss Khawaja, 31 – who joined the BBC just over a year ago – then suggested on Twitter that someone had tampered with her mobile handset as a joke. ‘ False alarm,’ she wrote. ‘Phone left unattended at home. Silly prank. Apologies for upsetting anyone!’ However the BBC later claimed the tweet had been sent during a rehearsal for the death of a senior member of the Royal Family.
‘During a technical rehearsal for an obituary, tweets were mistakenly sent from the account of a BBC journalist saying a member of the Royal Family had been taken ill,’ a spokesman said, adding: ‘The tweets were swiftly deleted and we apologise for any offence.’
Miss Khawaja was not directly involved with the hour- long rehearsal – which would have included plans for the way presenters should dress, and which studios to use – but would proba- bly have been aware that it was going on. The BBC is currently investigating the matter as part of disciplinary proceedings.
Yesterday Buckingham Palace was quick to confirm that the Queen remains in good health. The Mail understands that yesterday’s annual medical ‘MOT’ was so uneventful that most royal staff were ‘blissfully unaware’ that the monarch had even been taken to the King Edward VII Hospital, the private facility in central London used by most senior members of the royal family.
A source told the Mail: ‘ The BBC has assured us that it was an error that occurred during one of their regular rehearsals in the event of an illness.’
They insisted that the BBC had not been pre-warned that the Queen was going to be in hospital, and went on to say: ‘It really must have been just an extraordinary coincidence.’
‘Apologise for any offence’