So what was the bug of the 1 p.m. news on TF1 on February 18, 2021? No, Jean-Pierre Pernaut did not leave with the keys for 1 p.m.
Jean-Pierre Pernaut, iconic presenter of TF1's 13h00 television news for 33 years, has never experienced a single bug. Well, twist! On February 18, 2021, the first general crash happened for her successor, Marie-Sophie Lacarrau. "Today, and this is unprecedented, we are not able to present your 1 p.m. newspaper to you, we are not able to present you with a single report ", she announces then. The journalist returned to the air about 30 minutes later to present a very shortened newspaper. This bug allowed his former colleague from France 2, Julian Bugier, to greet the new viewers with humor. "many it seems today", in the edition he presents on his side.
To read also: Departure of Jean-Pierre Pernaut: these slippages that will not be missed
Internet users, for their part, had a blast with the fanciful explanations. But what were the reasons for this serious network failure? It is much more trivial and pragmatic than their suggestions: Far from being a cyberattack launched by a Jean-Pierre Pernaut who became a hacker, the failure was in fact due … to a system update.
It was launched at the wrong time by a computer scientist, reveals the Chained Duck in its edition of February 24, 2021. The update was indeed launched at 12:10, or about fifty minutes from the dispatch of the newspaper. Still, it was the occasion to admire the professionalism and composure of Marie-Sophie Lacarrau.
TF1 had already known bugs on its newspaper in 1979 with the presenter Jean-Claude Bourret. The journalist had handled this cheekily, as the Ina archive shows below. At the time, no headset, but a landline and a serious sense of humor …