Posted on 07/28/2013 6:56:21 AM PDT by Kaslin
When I first saw the KTVU video in which anchorwoman Tori Campbell gave the fictional names of the Asiana Airlines pilots -- Captain Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee Fuk and Bang Ding Ow -- I laughed. I laughed out loud, and then I watched it again. After days of watching the painful news about the July 6 crash that killed three and left many wounded, it felt good to laugh. I didn't think that the gaffe had racist intent. I figured it was just a puerile newsroom prank that somehow made it on the air.
I never would have made that mistake, I liked to think, but I've made other dumb mistakes.
Later, I learned that someone in the newsroom had gotten the names and someone in the newsroom had called the National Transportation Safety Board, where someone else verified the names, and that's how a mistake that should not have happened made it onto live TV and then went viral.
Like a lot of people who work in a Bay Area newsroom, I'm not laughing anymore.
You see, when I tried to write on the mishap, I called Roland De Wolk, a producer at KTVU but also the husband of my best friend, San Francisco Chronicle reporter Carla Marinucci. Roland said he'd love to tell me what had happened, but he couldn't and referred me to the station's general manager, Tom Raponi, whom I called for days. Raponi never called me back.
Because Carla can keep a secret, I had no idea that days later, I'd see Roland's name listed among three veteran journalists whom, the Chronicle's Phil Mateir and Andy Ross reported, KTVU management was canning. It also never occurred to me because De Wolk is one of the most tenacious and thorough journalists I know. He's won a Society of Professional Journalists lifetime achievement award, four James Madison Freedom of Information Awards, and more for his top-notch investigative work. There are a number of shady characters in Oakland who no doubt are celebrating his untimely departure from the station.
Readers should feel free to ignore what I have to say on the subject, because I am biased on the subject of De Wolk. But this story also hits too close to home because we're both in the news business, in which everyone is overworked and some are under-protected. As revenue has fallen and news organizations have been forced to lay off good writers and editors, management has been forced to throw more and more work at everyone, and mistakes are inevitable.
As former KTVU political editor Randy Shandobil told the Chronicle, KTVU staffers "were working harder and harder and feeling less secure about what was hitting the air." At Channel 2 and elsewhere, "people are overtaxed and have more responsibility sometimes than they can handle. And sometimes, in situations like this, terrible mistakes happen that are bigger than one person. It's systemic."
Over the years, I've watched as journalists have been let go because they broke the rules in bad faith. For example, The New York Times' Jayson Blair and New Republic's Stephen Glass made up sources, stories even, and those fraudsters deserved to go.
In this case, from my limited viewpoint, I see an overworked newsroom in which people made an honest mistake, confirmed by the NTSB and quickly corrected. Then the managers who put those hamsters on the nonstop treadmill -- and kept it running -- discarded them when they stumbled.
In these days, when newsrooms have been whittled down to nothing and the remaining journalists are worked silly, I expect to see more such mistakes. I expect to make some of them. That's why newspapers run corrections.
So here's the question many Bay Area journalists are asking themselves in the wake of the KTVU purge: When I make my next mistake, will management pick me up, dust me off and tell me not to screw up again, or will it cut me loose?
Just Journolists, Editors, management and owners.
It's because there is no such thing as "news" anymore when it comes to Obama's Press Corpse from San Francisco to Martha's Vineyard.
It's all propaganda and/or fluff designed to distract us from what really matters.
These "anchors" aren't "journalists". They are TelePrompTer readers. Newspaper reporters aren't "journalists". They just cut and paste whatever The Associated Press sends them.
The only place there is real journalism going on is on talk radio and blogs and FreeRepublic.com.
I wouldn’t have fired them, since they received NTSB confirmation, but I would forever question their judgment.
Sorry, but I lost all respect and sympathy for journalists and therefore no longer give a smelly Obama about them.
I (and the vast majority of those reading these types of blogs) can pick the wheat from the bull-Obama.
Journalism will have to prove itself worthy of respect.
And it has a very steep upslope to conquer.
Rule number one in business, don’t make your boss look bad.
Heh, heh.
1) The News biz isn't a biz. They do not care about profits, they care about pushing propaganda. Therefore, they have little money and cannot afford adequate staff.
2) J-schools attract sub-standard students. To succeed, you have to think like a Liberal. Therefore, logic and insight are not commonly found in J-school graduates.
3) The news biz mostly pushes talking points and pre-digested stories created by The Powers That Be. Their job is easy, and so they don't put a lot of thought into it. They just show up and say what they are paid to say.
Come on. Anyone with an IQ above room temperature could have taken a look at that graphic and said it should never have seen broadcast. One name slipping by is an 'honest mistake'. Not four.
AP = Always Propaganda!
I didn't see nay trademark claims so consider it stolen.
When editorials appear on the front page and are not labeled as opinion or analysis, then we know then we know that journalism and journalists are not what they used to be. This has nothing to do with honest mistakes or overworked folks in the newsroom. It means that journalism has abandoned its principles in pursuit of political and ideological objectives.
Once you abandon a dedication to truth and no longer maintain a clear separation between new pages and editorial pages, then why not turn to comedy. News today is entertainment and political advocacy, both dumbed down to the level of an uneducated audience.
In this case, from my limited viewpoint, I see an overworked newsroom in which people made an honest mistake, confirmed by the NTSB and quickly corrected. Then the managers who put those hamsters on the nonstop treadmill — and kept it running — discarded them when they stumbled.
If it were my call I wouldn’t have released the “names.”
An officer and an NCO in my workcenter had an inappropriate friendship. The Group Commander’s Secretary published a “Social Roster” with names and spouses. The officer wrote “Sum Yung Ho” next to the NCO’s name. The Secretary “knew” he had been married to a Korean and added it.
The NCO acted offended and I told him to shut up because he was sitting there when the Lieutenant wrote it and HE turned it in to the Secretary.
The problem was caused by the non-familiar APPEARANCE of names from a foreign culture which tends to get them lumped into the “all those oriental names look the same” basket.
The staff MAY not have even READ the names since they probably are of the generation which was taught “Sight Reading”.
“Ah, so, a gook name...whatever.” was the thought process.
Second option is that they DID read the names and thought, “What a great opportunity to get away with a ‘fast one’, similar to that execrable movie title of a few years ago, “Meet the Fockers”.
A juvenile prank that backfired.
They didn’t get fired because of shoddy journalism. That happens every second of every day. They were fired because they were not “sensitive” enough.
Backfired? It gained the attention of an entire nation. It might be one of the greatest pranks ever with the craven, PC media providing unwitting assistance.
And it was hilarious.
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