Congrats @CNN on using the correct headshot for your story. Brilliant work by your staff. @bustedcoverage pic.twitter.com/RsjzHfjia8
— The Mouth (@TheMouthLAKings) October 15, 2015
LaMarcus Aldridge is a professional basketball star. He’s 6’10, 240 pounds, and has an extremely unique playing style marked by the tendencies of a guard. Oh, he’s black, too.
Lamar Odom is a former professional basketball star. He’s 6’10, 230 pounds, and often seemed a point guard in the body of a power forward. He’s also black.
Aside from the first five letters of their given names, those are the only unique similarities between the San Antonio Spurs big man and former Los Angeles Lakers star. But that didn’t stop the folks at CNN from mistaking Aldridge for Odom during the latter’s harrowing fight to recover from a drug overdose.
Mishaps are common in media. We’re certainly not above them, and would never seem to imply otherwise by calling out another outlet for one of theirs. That’s not what we’re doing here. Either way, it’s simply inexcusable that this specific gaffe got past the powers that be at CNN to the point it was shown on air.
Odom’s life is at stake; this is a very, very serious situation. The respect and support he’s received from the NBA world should not only be mirrored by the public, but the people tasked with documenting his condition. CNN didn’t afford that to Odom before identifying him as someone else.
That a leading news network confused one famous black person with another only makes this error all the more troubling.