Just happened to mosey on by at weekend's close and caught this thread...
I can with almost 100 percent certainty tell you what happened with this. Through our web posting system, we have access to what is likely thousands of images that we've uploaded throughout the years. In the case of this story, the person who posted it likely did a search through the archives for "military," browsed through what came up, and posted an image of military boots. What the person did not see down the page was that the image came with a caption noting that it was, in fact, boots of Afghan soldiers. Normally, the images in our system don't come with captions automatically attached to them. This one did. I've removed that image and replaced it with one more appropriate.
If you happen to have a question, concern or comment about anything you see on air and online, you're welcome to contact our newsroom via at news-at-kbtx-dot-com. We'll be happy to correct any issues as quickly as possible. Our eyes are not locked on the Aggieland forum all day, and I understand that its more fun to point out errors than to be constructive and help be a solution.
I came across a grammatical error on a CNN.com article this morning (actually, yesterday morning now). Nothing major, but something that needed fixing. I threw a tweet the way of the author, who got back to me with his thanks. The piece was corrected within minutes. Mistakes happen, and while I've certainly had my finger pointing moments in the past, I've come to find out that being part of the solution feels a lot better than laughing at the problem.
When the robots we create in the coming years rise up and take over our planet, then maybe the Autobot 3000s that run KBTX will be mistake-free. For now, we'll learn from our errors as human beings and work extremely hard to avoid them in the future. We are not undeserving of or above criticism. Mr. Wright holds our station to high standards and is not afraid to let us know if he thinks we're not reaching them. I'm sure he'll do so in this case because it deserves to be. It was a mistake that shouldn't have happened.
Hopefully everyone has a good week ahead and is drying out a bit...
Steve Fullhart
KBTX News 3 | Bryan/College Station, TX