A regional news website published its readers’ best tongue-in-cheek responses after it made a photographic error.

Cornwall Live decided to hold its hands up after getting “what we deserved” for using a photograph of the wrong helicopter to accompany a story about a rescue at sea.

The site used an image of a Sea King, which was retired from active military service in September 2018 in a move covered by Cornwall Live at the time.

The error prompted a trend in the comment section of the Reach plc-owned title’s social media channels, in which readers “began to meme Cornwall Live’s penchant to publish images of Sea Kings”.

An example of how Cornwall Live readers responded after the error

Examples included an image of a cart accompanied by the headline ‘A30 at standstill after vehicle breaks down’ and a picture of dinosaurs captioned’Cornwall Live – UK set for heatwave’.

Cornwall Live decided to include some of the best in a piece admitting its error about the helicopter on Thursday.

Jeff Reines, senior content editor for Cornwall Live, told HTFP: “Like any self-respecting journalists, complete accuracy is our absolute byword and we aim to accept nothing less.

“But mistakes happen. Everyone makes them at some point and our readers and followers are never slow to pick us up on them.

“Often they do so in rather rude or crude fashion so I was almost pleasantly surprised to see how they took us to task with their tongues firmly in their cheeks in this instance.

“I always think the best approach is simply to hold your hands up. In this case, the fact they literally made me laugh out loud led me to take a somewhat unusual approach to our mea culpa with the new story.

“I knew it was a bit of a risk, not least sharing our gaff with thousands who would’ve known nothing about it.

“However, embarrassment aside, it’s been one of our best-read stories of the day, so I’ve got no regrets.”