![]() That agency's Office of Public Affairs soon issued a press release apologizing for the incident, stating that KTVU had been misled by "a summer intern acted outside the scope of his authority": In this instance it appears that KTVU did attempt to verify the information with the proper agency, but someone from the NTSB also contributed to gaffe by confirming the purported pilots' names. ![]() Often in such cases news outlets are the recipients of erroneous information passed along to them by pranksters who have misrepresented themselves as belonging to law enforcement or government agencies, and the news agencies fail to validate the credentials of the persons relaying the information. In their 12 July report, KTVU announced that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) had released the names of the four pilots on Flight 214, and their newsperson proceeded to read those names aloud as they were displayed on the screen - even though it was obvious to many, many viewers (and therefore should have been obvious to station personnel) that those names were a form of low humor based on crude Asian stereotypes: Sum Ting Wong ("something wrong"), Wi Tu Lo ("we too low"), Ho Lee Fuk ("holy f*ck"), and Bang Ding Ow: Rumor that a tv station (KTVU) reported the names of pilots of the recent plane crash as Ho Lee Fuk, Wi Too Lo, etc. ![]() One such "failure to catch" occurred on 12 July 2013 when Oakland television station KTVU aired a report related to an air disaster that had taken place the previous week, in which Flight 214 operated by Asiana (a South Korean airline) crashed during an attempted go-around at San Francisco International Airport, killing three passengers and injuring an additional 181:Įxamples: (The name " Heywood Jablome" is one that has been used repeatedly.) In most cases reporters and editors catch the phony names before they make it to print or air, but sometimes they slip through without discovery, resulting in great embarrassment to the reporting news outlet. Producer Brad Belstock was also fired, apparently for tweeting "Oh shit." after the incident.One type of gag that has commonly been pulled on the news media by the public is pranksters feeding reporters fake names - appellations that look like real names in written form, but which form crude or nonsensical phrases when pronounced. De Wolk was fired shortly after the incident Special Projects Producer Cristina Gastelu. At some point, Managing Editor Michelle Toy even spoke up to point out that the fake names sounded like Chinese origin, even though Asiana is a Korean-based airline.ĭe Wolk is currently suing for wrongful termination and the station has put the entire staff under a gag order. When asked if the ex-Pilot consultant sent the names as a joke, and if the station knew that, the source replied, "Apparently not." Even though KTVU had already posted the real pilot's names online, at least four people saw the list of names and OK'ed it before Anchor Tori Campbell read them on-air. Toy, who is of Asian descent, was not one of the four staffers let go by KTVU and its corporate owner, Cox Media. Told that they were confirmed by an NTSB official, (later to be known as an intern), OKed the list. KTVU's Managing Editor, Michelle Toy, who saw the list and whose duty, (among normal news procedures), was to read the names out loud, phonetically, raised the issue that the names sounded suspicious. Local media watchdog blogger Rich Leiberman reports that a source at the station has detailed the fact-checking process: "You better check these, (names), out", said De Wolk after he passed the names over to newsroom personnel. ![]() The ex-pilot source reportedly emailed or texted the names to reporter Roland De Wolk, who passed them off onto the newsroom staff to be checked. A former commercial pilot and trusted source of reporters at KTVU is the person responsible for handing the fake names "Captain Sum Ting Wong," "We To Lo," "Ho Lee Fuk," and "Bang Ding Ow" to the news channel, which were read on-air even though the channel had itself reported the real pilots' names just days before.
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