Tough day to be the TIME editor that missed this one.
Twitter users are not afraid to let the major magazine know they had a significant mess up with a recent article discussing the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam in Ukraine.
The dam collapsed on June sixth, leading to massive environmental destruction along with civil detriment. There is still back and forth between European leaders and NATO as to what caused the compromise, but there is no doubt that the effects are catastrophic.
CNN World reported:
“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, his government, and the country’s military were quick to blame Moscow for the disaster. They said Russian forces blew up the reservoir from inside, with Zelensky quoting a report by Ukrainian intelligence last year that claimed occupying troops had mined the dam.
The Ukrainians point out that the facility has been under Russian control for the past year, making it easy for Russian forces to plant explosives.”
Others, including Russia, argue that it was an attack from Ukraine (possibly with American weapons) that destroyed the dam.
Either way, Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister, Andrij Melnyk, has said that this is “the worst environmental catastrophe in Europe since the Chernobyl disaster.”
TIME Magazine also was one of the first major publications to note how significant the flooding would be to the country but did not take the time to read the article’s title out loud… leading to a massive misunderstanding of what they truly meant.
The article (formerly) titled “How Ukraine’s Dam Collapse Could Become The Country’s ‘Chernobyl'” is making headlines on Twitter because, well… Chernobyl IS located in Ukraine.
Twitter even issued readers a note saying:
“While the article is grounded and written by Ukraine experts, the headline is misleading. Chernobyl is already Ukraine’s own Chernobyl because it is a city in Ukraine.”
However, this statement did not stop TIME from facing heat from Twitter users.
There is the saying, “All press is good press,” but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say this is not the press they wanted to gain from this article.
It is also worth mentioning that the contributing authors of the article are predominantly Ukrainian and reporting from Kyiv, and that the article itself is very well-written. It seems as though the editor tasked with creating the headline is the one who needs to brush up on their geography.
For those who could use a refresher as well, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is the site of what is largely considered the worst nuclear accident of all time, which occurred on 26 April 1986 near the city of Pripyat (now abandoned), which, at the time, was located in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialistic Republic of the Soviet Union… present day Ukraine.
Time Magazine has since changed the title of the article.
The new title reads:
“How Ukraine’s Dam Collapse Could Have ‘Generational’ Consequences.”
Aside from the humor behind this ‘oopsie,’ our thoughts go out to all the citizens of Ukraine, and all others in the region, facing the detrimental effects of the dam compromise.
