Salon Screws Up, Confuses Comedian with 'Big Bang' Actor

The TV critic for Salon is going to have some explaining to do after her recent article on the popular HBO show Silicon Valley wrongly claimed that comedian Kumail Nanjiani, one of the show’s stars, was also a regular on the Big Bang Theory.

The article, written by Salon’s Sonia Saraiya and published Friday afternoon, stated that “Nanjiani, who plays Dinesh, is in fact a regular on The Big Bang Theory, and is playing a rather similar role in Silicon Valley.” In fact Nanjiani, a 37-year-old Pakistani-American, has appeared on many television shows but Big Bang Theory is not one of them.

It appeared Saraiya confused Nanjiani with Kunal Nayyar, a 33-year-old British-Indian actor who plays Raj on The Big Bang Theory.

A social media firestorm erupted after Nanjiani tweeted the mistake just before 5 p.m.

As of 5:42 p.m., Salon’s editors had not printed a correction or apology but the incorrect statement had been removed. Saraiya did tweet an apology to both not long after:

At 6:05 p.m., Salon tweeted an official apology:

And that, my friends, is how journalism is fact-checked in the 21st century — not well. Thank goodness for social media!