Oops! Financial Times red-faced after epic blunder

“The Pink” paper turned several shades of red Thursday morning after a major reporting mistake.

The Financial Times — nicknamed for its distinctive shade of light pink newsprint — erroneously reported that Europe’s central bankers had decided to hold interest rates steady rather than cut them as expected.

The London-based paper compounded the error by tweeting the incorrect story at 7:38 a.m. (“ECB leaves rates unchanged in shock decision”) just minutes before the European Central Bank announced at 7:45 a.m. that it was cutting rates.

“The article was one of two pre-written stories — covering different possible decisions — which had been prepared in advance of the announcement,” the paper said in a correction posted on its site. “Due to an editing error it was published when it should not have been. Automated feeds meant that the initial error was compounded by being simultaneously published on Twitter.

“The FT deeply regrets this serious mistake and will immediately be reviewing its publication and workflow processes to ensure such an error cannot happen again. We apologise to all our readers.”

Robin Wigglesworth, the deputy head of the paper’s breaking news fastFT service, said the reporter on the story, Claire Jones, was not responsible for the screwup.

In July, UK-based Pearson sold the FT to Japanese media giant Nikkei for $1.3 billion.