On Dec. 18, news of the death of Jonghyun — lead singer of K-pop band SHINee — broke to fans' shock, dismay and grief.

This was big in the K-pop scene, and was reported on by news agencies worldwide, including Chicago's NBC 5, an American news channel. 

Unfortunately, the media company erroneously used a clip of another Korean band — the current "it" group BTS — in their televised report, instead of footage of SHINee, and of course, it did not go unnoticed.

Here's the clip of the fiasco:

Their mistake becomes even more ridiculous when you hear, quite clearly, the introduction by BTS's lead and main rapper, RM (for Rap Monster — just in case you were wondering, his real name is Kim Nam Joon):

"Hi, my name is RM, and I'm the leader of this crew." (cue insane screaming)

For reference, the following is a photo of SHINee. Jonghyun is in the middle with a blue suit and red turtleneck:

And the following is a photo of BTS, with RM in black on the extreme left.

Fans of both groups were extremely upset, to say the least:

@nbcchicago you owe #shawol & #Shinee an apology. They didn’t even do proper research on #Jonghyun pic.twitter.com/R7SNwZ9B2E

— Zee (@Monbabyz_) December 20, 2017

Just look at the number of retweets on these tweets:

https://twitter.com/jinjjarevil/status/943349943531724800?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.trendsmap.com%2Flocal%2Fsg%2Fsingapore%3Futm_source%3Dtw%26utm_campaign%3Dal%26utm_term%3Da%23

You're watched by hundreds of thousands of people and you broadcasted incorrect news, you've deeply disrespected Jonghyun, his family, & SHINee with this, not only was it very easy to Google who Jonghyun was, it was also all over Twitter, no excuses, apologize @nbcchicago pic.twitter.com/ECSLkm7syj

— 조혜원💜 (@BTS_ARMY_INT) December 20, 2017

Okay. @nbcchicago you better apologize. You disrespected both Jong Hyun, RM, and all of KPop. Apologize now.

— First Sight 💜 (@firstsight_jk) December 20, 2017

Now what?
Was it a mistake @nbcchicago ?
How could it be a mistake?
U should apologize.
You broadcasted and posted same death news with two different pictures of two different person?
Its disrespectful, so apologize.#NBCChicagoApologize pic.twitter.com/5PtgJ6k0n3

— Maham Qureshi (@mahamq_) December 20, 2017

The comments have even spread to NBC Chicago's Facebook page:

"You posted a video of BTS today when talking about the death of Jonghyun! SHINee was not the band in the video, it was BTS. Please hire better journalists!! HORRIBLE RESEARCH"

[related_story]

"I can't believe you screwed up so bad displaying BTS instead of Jonghyun or even SHINee in your broadcast. BTS is not Jonghyun and none of the members even look like him. You're ignorant and should have done more research. This is why K-Pop is only for people who truly appreciate it. This is such a disrespectful action. Rest in Peace Jonghyun."

"When you reported this you made it seem as if the leader of BTS committed suicide. You didn't even do a simple freaking google search! I hope bighit (BTS's music label in South Korea) sues you guys"

"YOU GUYS ARE FAKE NEWS. THAT REPORT USING BTS WAS TERRIBLE!!!"

"My god how can you think that RM is Jonghyun??? BTS is shinee?? they dont even know what they're reporting .It's so much disrespectful they have to apologize to jonghyun's family, shinee, shawols (fans of SHINee) and most important RM."

Their own tweet didn't fare too well, either:

#BREAKING: Lead singer of popular S. Korean boy band dies https://t.co/OExtLOvRKQ pic.twitter.com/ZQDaL9JOKh

— NBC Chicago (@nbcchicago) December 18, 2017

Many fans posted angry rants in response to it:

A quick check on NBC Chicago's Twitter and Facebook page shows they haven't yet issued any apology for the mistake at the moment.

Although to be fair to them, this is all going on while they're sound asleep — Chicago is 14 hours behind Singapore — guess they'll be waking up to a pretty rude shock.

Top image screenshot from video.