NBC News Forced to Release Statement After Big Mistake in Their Coverage of the Paris Terror Attack

NBC News was forced to retract a heavily-promoted report and issue a statement Wednesday evening during their coverage of the deadly terror attack in Paris against a French satirical newspaper.

The news outlet reported that one of the suspects in the attack had been killed and the other two were in custody, citing two senior counter-terrorism officials.

BREAKING: 1 suspect in the Paris attack has been killed and the remaining 2 are in custody, senior U.S. officials say - @PeteWilliamsNBC

— NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) January 7, 2015

BREAKING: One suspect in Paris terror attack killed, two in custody, U.S. officials say https://t.co/tOJVZu0Wwp

— NBC News (@NBCNews) January 7, 2015

However, as events unfolded throughout the night, it became clear that the report was false. Instead, officials said the youngest suspect turned himself in as they sought the public's help locating two others.

Pete Williams, who initially reported the news, first appeared to walk back his report during an MSNBC appearance.

NBC appears to be walking back Pete Williams report Paris suspects were killed, arrested https://t.co/XaKWLVbzxM

— Jon Passantino (@passantino)

January 8, 2015

Then the front page of NBC News' website changed.

.@NBCNews just changed their front page: “No French confirmation of U.S. officials account of Paris manhunt" pic.twitter.com/vvVOMAyzUG

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) January 8, 2015

Finally, the outlet retracted the report entirely, noting it had been a "long day of rapidly changing info."

Update: Officials tell @NBCNews that after long day of rapidly changing info, status of Paris suspects not certain: https://t.co/s2qWHGwIET

— CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) January 8, 2015

"NBC News issued an earlier report based on intelligence from two consistently reliable U.S. counterterrorism officials in different government agencies," a spokesperson for the news outlet said in a statement forwarded to TheBlaze.

"As soon as it became evident that our sources doubted their information, we immediately updated our reporting across all platforms and continue to do so as this fast-moving story unfolds," the NBC representative added.

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