State-owned DD news on Thursday goofed up on the health condition of BJP’s stalwart and former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee declaring around 2.30 pm that he was no more. This misled other news channels as well.

Around 2.30 pm, the national broadcaster issued the news that the former prime minister was no more and private TV channels such as India TV quoted DD News to say that Vajpayee had passed away.

But very soon, the mistake was realised and the national channel backtracked on the news. Soon after, its anchor started giving justifications for the goof up.

On the matters related to health issues of senior politicians, generally, private news channels and news websites rely on official media outlets like DD News and All India Radio as nobody takes chances in these matters.

The national broadcaster was hauled up a few years back for wrongly pronouncing Chinese president Xi Jinping’s name as 'Eleven Jinping'.