Dear Public Radio Colleagues –

In the 1500 Eastern edition of Newshour on Friday, February 26th, a man claiming to be Senator Cory Booker was interviewed in what we believe was a deliberate hoax. The deception was detected within minutes and the broadcast was quickly removed from our website. It did not run in the 1600 edition. We apologised to Senator Cory’s office immediately, published a written correction on our site and on last Monday’s 1500 Eastern edition we broadcast an on-air correction.

As the Editor of the programme I can only pass on my sincerest and most heartfelt apologies. The entire team is, as you would expect, completely mortified.

Since the broadcast we have conducted a detailed investigation into what went wrong, and while the coincidence of events that led to this unfortunate mistake is unlikely to repeat itself, we have reviewed our procedures to ensure we eliminate that risk altogether.

I thank you for your continued faith in the programme and we look forward to repaying your trust in us, by delivering the highest quality of programming that you have come to expect from Newshour.

Yours sincerely,

Jo Floto
Editor
BBC Newshour