Boston’s ABC affiliate WCVB TV was forced to withstand the slings and arrows of sports fans after using a stock photo of the recently deceased convicted murderer Aaron Hernandez, to illustrate a story on the team’s big playoffs win last weekend.
As the Patriots wrapped up their battle to win yet another opportunity to play at the Super Bowl, WCVB posted a tweet celebrating the team’s win. However, the tweet featured a photo of Aaron Hernandez, who was convicted of murder, committed suicide, and hasn’t played football since 2012.
Social media users, of course, went wild with derision for the TV station, as Awful Announcing reported.
Many joked that the team “killed them” on the field, others ribbed the TV tweet about “zombie players,” and still others just slammed the station in general for its absurd choice of photos to illustrate the piece.
For its part, the station tweeted out an explanation saying that someone just grabbed a stock photo of the Patriots and it was just an unfortunate coincidence that it was a photo of Hernandez.
Unsurprisingly, WCVB deleted the original tweet. Social media editors at WCVB will likely take a far more active role in the Super Bowl tweets.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.