Wow… What was that summer intern thinking??
Mind you, it’s also a scary insight into the near-total deference to officialdom of some elements of the media.
I’m going with:
“There is no way they are going to run this…”
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The Summer Intern might have made the names for placeholders–as a joke for another crew member.
But that’s no excuse for the reporter READING them on the air without saying “WTF STOP”. or for any of the other paid employees at the station that graphic would have pass through from the production booth to the director to the ‘talent’.
They confirmed the names, not provided them. I’m thinking the summer intern was thinking “what’s next, is this idiot going to ask me if I have Prince Albert in the can?”
Sounds like maybe KTVU should be buying one of them new French sarcasm detectors.
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I first laughed when I learned that the newsfolk read it out loud.
Then I thought – why in hell would the names of the pilots and crew be newsworthy in the first place?
Guess reporters like those really will believe anything if it’s told to them by “an official in Washington”.
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Well, ultimately it’s going to be marked as pilot error, and the flight attendants did an awesome job getting almost everyone off safely. So, I’d say the reason the plane crashed and the reason so many people DIDN’T die are newsworthy elements of this story.
True, but whenever I’m presented with news, I expect it to be useful information, not just informative. It’s like when Wolf Blitzer was apparently convinced that there must be more people dead and they must have been in the tail section – moving from useful information to just information to questions, to sheer speculation. At least this does lean toward the former.
I laughed too, but it would’ve been funnier if the names actually resembled Korean names and sounded like English, like Park Gyu. There’s even a joke in Korea with that name.
I wonder if Asian languages lend themselves to making funny sounding western names?
So Harry Butts had to yet again bear the brunt of Othering derision repeatedly flung at the Butts people, one more example of a long and continuing history of racist reminders that he and his people differ from the unremarkable white norm.
Oh wait – Wi Tu Lo is racist, and Harry Butts isn’t!
(Are you getting a clue yet?)
The station got these names from the NTSB and didn’t question it? Wow.
This is already on Korean news sites and they are not amused.
I suspect that the same goes in China, given that it’s basically a retread of the old “joke” pictured below.
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I suppose we can, but I think the kind of person who puts this on tv maybe can’t…
This is pretty much front-page news around the world now.
i know a guy named Dick Hunter.
happily married, very straight guy.
the funny thing is that his given name is Richard. he could easily go with Richard, Rick, or Rich.
i snicker to myself like a 12-year-old whenever i see him.
My wife and I still laugh at Matthew Weiner in the intro and exit credits of Mad Men, every time.
The most absurd news about this yet:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/14/asiana-airlines-legal-action-tv
Right. So, “The reputation of the four pilots and of the company had been seriously damaged by this report” - more than by, say, screwing up your approach, crashing your plane and killing people?
I would think Asiana would want to be finding a nice quiet hole to hide in rather than stirring this up further.
