A Los Angeles TV news channel posted a single-word tweet with the N-word Friday — sparking outrage and prompting the station to apologize for the “technical error.”
KTLA, known as Channel 5, tweeted the slur with no context Friday morning, and screenshots quickly spread through the internet before the station could delete it.
“Someone’s getting fired today,” one X user proclaimed, while another slammed “KKKTLA just took their white hood off.”
The station quickly posted a mea culpa.
“KTLA experienced a technical error while adding language filters to our social media accounts, resulting in an offensive word being accidentally shared. We are appalled and apologize that this occurred,” the station tweeted.
The news channel was referring to an X functionality that allows users to “mute” certain words, effectively blocking them from seeing any tweets that include those words.
The explanation indicates that the station’s social media coordinator meant to add the N-word to its list of “muted” words but accidentally posted it instead.
Observers, however, were skeptical of the explanation.
“Aside from this obviously not being true — why would a news outlet need language filters on social media accounts?,” one X user tweeted.
“That’s your excuse?” another wrote.
In a statement to The Post, a KTLA spokesperson said they are “investigating” how the unfortunate post was published.
“KTLA is investigating the exact cause of this incident, and we deeply regret what happened. We again apologize to KTLA’s audience and the greater Los Angeles community.”
