At 5 a.m. EST, the Nobel Prize Organization’s official Twitter account announced that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons had won the Nobel Peace Prize:
The thing is, Norwegian television station NRK had already leaked the winner more than an hour prior.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, hours earlier, NRK had already run a story stating that 16-year-old Malala Yousafzai would not take home the prize.
This isn’t the first time that the Nobel Committee has been suspected of experiencing leaks. NRK correctly predicted the winners in both 2003 and 2004.
What is unexpected, however, is the Nobel Committee’s very active Twitter account. Namely, how open @Nobelprize_org is to admitting that it can’t get its winners on the phone.
This was especially strange considering that the OPCW clearly knew that it had won the prize.
Almost three hours after its announcement, the Nobel Committee made sure its Twitter followers know that it was finally able to get through:
Charming as the interchange was, it appears as if the organization has been having difficulty reaching its winners all week (and has been turning to Twitter to publicize said difficulty).
Here’s when it couldn’t get in touch with literature Laureate Alice Munro:
It even resorted to hashtags to track her down!
And here’s Nobel announcing its attempt to reach physics Laureate Peter Higgs:
Between the leaks and missed calls, it’s safe to say that Nobel won’t be winning any prizes for its own performance this week.