News outlets like the Washington Post, BBC and MSNBC drew anger for their coverage of NBA star Kobe Bryant's death

MSNBC anchor Allison Morris was slammed after appearing to make a racial slur while talking about Bryant.
Meanwhile, BBC News came under fire for using footage of LeBron James instead of Bryant on air.
Washington Post reporter Felicia Sonmez was suspended after tweeting a link to an April 2016 story about Bryant's rape case, and then screengrabbing and sharing on Twitter the names of people who criticized her.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said it was "wholly inappropriate" for TMZ to break the story before officials had been able to notify the victims' families of their deaths.
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Major news outlets, including the Washington Post, BBC, MSNBC and TMZ, were censured on Sunday for their coverage of basketball legend Kobe Bryant's death.

Bryant and his daughter, 13-year-old Gianna, were among nine people who died when their helicopter crashed amid foggy conditions and burst into flames in the Calabasas hills, the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department reported.

Reporters jumped on the story of the unexpected death of one of NBA's greats as details about the tragic accident trickled in slowly. But some stumbled along the way.

MSNBC anchor Allison Morris was slammed on social media after appearing to make a racial slur while talking about Bryant, who spent 20 years as a Los Angeles Laker.

Morris took to Twitter to issue an apology , writing: "Earlier today, while reporting on the tragic news of Kobe Bryant's passing, I, unfortunately, stuttered on-air, combining the names of the Knicks and the Lakers to say 'Nakers.' Please know I did not & would NEVER use a racist term. I apologize for the confusion this caused."

Bryan's fans, however, were not satisfied.

A Change.org petition titled "Get Alison Morris Fired !!!" had picked up almost 14,000 signatures as of Monday morning.

"What she said was not Accident but on PURPOSE because she paused before she said " Los Angeles Ni***** " We need to join together to get her fired because Enough is Enough & we will not tolerate this Racist BS anymore !" Alizah Parks, who created the petition, wrote.

Meanwhile, BBC News came under fire for using footage of LeBron James instead of Bryant on its program BBC News on Ten. Outraged fans said the two NBA legends look nothing alike and were particularly aggrieved by the fact that BBC got it wrong even though "James" was clearly printed on the back of LeBron James' jersey.

BBC has since apologized, saying the mistake occurred due to "human error." A story on their website says producers used video of James surpassing Bryant's spot on the NBA's all-time scoring list, but "the voiceover did not explain why viewers were seeing James on screen at that stage, rather than Bryant."

Anchor Reeta Chakrabarti ended the news report by apologizing for the on-screen flub and was followed closely by Paul Royall, editor of BBC News at Six and Ten, who expressed regret on Twitter.

The Washington Post was the next to draw ire.

National political reporter Felicia Sonmez was suspended on Sunday after tweeting a link to an April 2016 Daily Beast story , whose headline reads: "Kobe Bryant's Disturbing Rape Case: The DNA Evidence, the Accuser's Story, and the Half-Confession," Mediaite reported.

Sonmez received tremendous blowback, prompting her to write a follow-up tweet saying, "Well, THAT was eye-opening," in response to abuse and death threats that poured into her inbox. People took screenshots of her now-deleted tweets that show her saying: "To the 10,000 people (literally) who have commented and emailed me with abuse and death threats, please take a moment and read the story - which was written 3+ years ago, and not by me. Any public figure is worth remembering in their totality even if that public figure is beloved and that totality unsettling."

She responded to the continuing rage by tweeting, "If your response to a news article is to resort to harassment and intimidation of journalists, you might want to consider that your behavior says more about you than the person you're targeting."

Tracy Grant, managing editor of the Post, told the Daily Mail that Sonmez has been placed on administrative leave amid an investigation into whether her tweets violated the "newsroom's social media policy."

"The tweets displayed poor judgment that undermined the work of her colleagues," Grant told the media outlet. Journalist Matthew Keys subsequently reported that a source at the Post told him Sonmez's managers cared less about her tweets and more about the screengrabs of her email inbox, which she shared on Twitter, displaying the full names of her critics. That move could have legal repercussions, he said.

TMZ, which originally broke the story, was condemned by the sheriff's officials for reporting the story before the victims' families had been notified of the fatal accident.

During a press conference, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva refused to confirm the names of the nine passengers, none of whom survived, until the coroner had identified them.

"It would be extremely disrespectful to understand that your loved ones perished and you learned about it from TMZ," Villanueva said. "That is just wholly inappropriate. So we're not going to be going there."

Kobe Bryant's helicopter crashed in foggy conditions considered so dangerous that the LAPD grounded all its flights

Kobe Bryant's last tweet before he died was to congratulate LeBron James on surpassing him for the NBA all-time scoring list

Moments of silence honoring NBA legend Kobe Bryant were held at a Rockets-Nuggets and at a Biden campaign event

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