KTVU Producers Fired Over Viral Racist News Fiasco

What's This?

By Sam Laird2013-07-25 19:48:39 UTC

Bay Area local news station KTVU has fired three veteran producers for a viral news gaffe that broadcast racist, fictitious names for the flight crew of Asiana Airlines Flight 214's deadly crash at San Francisco International Airport earlier this month.

Investigative producer Roland DeWolk, special projects producer Cristina Gastelu and producer Brad Belstock were all quietly dismissed, according to news first reported by the blog 415 Media and subsequently confirmed by the San Francisco Chronicle .

See also: NTSB Intern Blamed for Racist Local News Gaffe

Flight 214's crash at SFO on July 6 injured more than 180 passengers. Three passengers died.

During a live July 12 broadcast, KTVU anchor Tori Campbell said the station had obtained the names of the four pilots on board the flight, identifying them as Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee Fuk and Bang Ding Ow. The names were simultaneously shown to viewers on a supplementary graphic, and you can watch it all for yourself in the video embedded above.

After a commercial break, Campbell apologized for the egregious error, and the station apologized again on another newscast later the same day. The damage, however, had already been done.

Almost immediately, the gaffe lit up Twitter and Internet blogs, while numerous videos of the clip popped up on YouTube. Many of those have since been removed on copyright claims, but others remain viewable.

KTVU passed some of the blame for its mistake to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), saying that someone there had confirmed the Asiana pilots' names before they were aired. The NTSB issued its own apology, then said an intern had confirmed the phony names. That intern has since been fired.

Asiana Airlines, for its part, announced earlier this month that it planned to sue KTVU for damaging the airline's reputation, then later backed off those threats.

KTVU still has not shared publicly how the offensive names made it all the way to Campbell's teleprompter and viewers' TV sets, but its internal investigation of the mistake led to the ousting of DeWolk, Gastelu and Belstock. A fourth producer, Elvin Sledge, reportedly told co-workers that he had decided to leave for health concerns.

Were these firings justified, or more a symptom of the modern news industry's overstretched resources? Give us your take in the comments.

Homepage image: Zennie Abraham, Flickr

Topics: Business, Media, U.S.