Reporting on the Death of Neil Armstrong, 82, the First Man to Walk on the Moon, NBC News on the Internet Initially Gets It Wrong. Armstrong’s First Steps Captivated TV Viewers in One of the Most Famous TV Broadcasts Ever

Reporting on the Death of Neil Armstrong, 82, the First Man to Walk on the Moon, NBC News on the Internet Initially Gets It Wrong. Armstrong’s First Steps Captivated TV Viewers in One of the Most Famous TV Broadcasts Ever

Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon, has died. He was 82.

According to NBC News, which first reported the astronaut’s death, “His family reported the death at 2:45 p.m. ET [on Saturday, 8-25-2012]. A statement said he died following complications resulting from cardiovascular procedures.”

The Los Angeles Times obituary notes that “Armstrong’s lunar stroll on July 20, 1969 — watched by an estimated 600 million television viewers worldwide — established him firmly as one of the great heroes of the 20th century.”

If one clicks on the NBC News story on the Web, it now carries this update: “(Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story included the wrong name in the headline.)”

The editor’s note does not say what name NBC News originally wrote in its headline. Here is a screenshot TVWeek took of the original NBC News headline:

Neil Young, the famous Canadian folk-rock musician, is 66 and not dead. (The picture in the screenshot is Neil Armstrong. It was only in the headline that NBC News wrote the name of the wrong Neil.)