NBC News reprimanded an employee for “mistakenly” flashing a picture of Osama Bin Laden behind an anchorman during a segment on Senator Barack Obama yesterday.

The “mistake” happened during a segment on Obama on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews. As Matthews spoke, a picture of Bin Laden flashed on the screen for more than a few seconds – certainly long enough for someone to see it in the control room.

Obama’s camp quickly called NBC to complain, and Matthews apologized on the air a few minutes later.

This isn’t the first time the networks made Obama the butt of their jokes: CNN apologized last year for promoting a story on the search for bin Laden with the headline, “Where’s Obama?”

And CNN’s Alina Cho reported that “Barack Obama’s campaign has been dogged by false rumors, among them that Osama is a Muslim, Obama rather.”