Asiana pilots names blunder: THE moment a KTVU producer realized it was a prank

Asiana pilots names blunder: THE moment a KTVU producer realized it was a prank, The Asiana racist pilots names controversy -- an obvious prank played out on live television -- is about as embarrassing as it gets. It involves the media, KTVU in Oakland, and a government agency, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). And it involves a seriously offensive mocking of the Asian American comunity during a most trying time -- the aftermath of the Asiana Airlines plane crash that killed three and injured 181 last Friday.

The latter, the NTSB, has delivered an apology while the former (KTVU) has posted two. But the controversy began even before the end of the string of offensive names that were broadcast was complete, because one producer realized what was happening almost at the onset of the prank.

If you live in the Oakland-San Francisco area and were tuned into KTVU around noon on Friday, July 12, you would have been hard pressed to have been as quick on the uptake as Fox producer Brad Belstock. The San Francisco Chronicle reported July 12 that Belstock reacted almost immediately upon hearing KTVU anchor Tori Campbell speak the four bogus pilots' names.

"Oh sh*t," he posted to Twitter.

According to the Daily Mail, Belstock deleted the comment a few short minutes later. Then he deleted his entire Twitter account.

It is as yet unclear whether or not Brad Belstock was producing the newscast. But he certainly new what the newscast was sure to produce...

An apology was issued during KTVU's next news segment, according to The Inquisitr, in the early evening. But KTVU repeated what they'd announced earlier -- the Asiana pilots names were confirmed by an NTSB agent.

But they didn't get the agent's name or any information about said agent.

The NTSB would later issue an apology and confirm that the confirmation had indeed been made by one of their own, an unnamed summer intern that had gone beyond the "scope of his authority," because it was standard NTSB procedure to never release information of any kind regarding a case.

The intern, for whatever reason (perhaps he thought he was being pranked?) had confirmed a list of four names for KTVU: “Captain Sum Ting Wong” and pilots “Ho Lee Fuk,” “Wi Tu Lo,” and "Bang Ding Ow."

And these were the names the anchor Tori Campbell delivered to her audience, the same names that prompted an "Oh sh*t" from a KTVU producer.

The video of the obvious prank went viral, with one blogger at BigLeadSports.com asking, "Who is reading the teleprompter in Oakland, Ron Burgandy [sic]?" under the title assertion that the on-air "mistake might be one of the worst TV screwups of 2013."

And after the NTSB apology and a spokesperson stating that the rogue agent had only confirmed but did not make up the fake names, KTVU again apologized, taking "full responsibility" for the offensive broadcast.

To make this story the embodiment of the phrase of that exact moment when the crap strikes the fan, KTVU has an extensive Asian American audience: 16.8% of the population in its base city of Oakland, another 33.3 percent in San Francisco across the bay, and another 32 percent in San Jose, just a few miles south.

It would appear that KTVU producer Brad Belstock might need a proxy set of retweets.

Asiana pilots names blunder: THE moment a KTVU producer realized it was a prank 2013-07-14T07:29:00-07:00 Rating: 4.5 Diposkan Oleh: My Videos Tube