A San Francisco television station reported on Friday that the pilots of the Asiana plane crash were Captain Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee Fuk, and Bang Ding Ow. Read those names again…slowly.
Asiana airlines announced Monday that they will sue KTVU-TV, CBS reported.
According to CNN, Asiana is filing a defamation suit with KTVU. The airline is claiming KTVU damaged their reputation with the offensive fake names. This blunder or prank probably damaged the station’s reputation as well.
According to SFGate.com, both KTVU and the National Transportation Safety Board, which confirmed the names, apologized on Friday. The NTSB said a summer intern erroneously confirmed the names, but the names originated with KTVU. Asiana has forgiven the NTSB, but the apology from the TV station came too little too late. As SFGate.com’s Matier and Ross said, “Captain Sum Ting Wong should have been a dead giveaway that something was wrong.”
CNN reported that the intern is no longer with the NTSB. No one has been axed yet at KTVU. However, KTVU general manager Tom Raponi went online and said, “We are reviewing our procedures to ensure this type of error does not happen again,” SFGate.com reported.
In order for KTVU’s report to be defamatory, it must damage one’s reputation, it must be published, it must clearly identify a person or group, it must cause injury of some kind, and it must be proved that there was reckless disregard by the reporter/station, or the reporter/station published the information knowing it was false. Ken Paulson does not believe that Asiana will be able to find evidence for all of these factors, and will lose their suit with KTVU. Paulson told CNN, “It’s very difficult to conceive of a defamation suit prevailing here. Everyone heard this understood it was a prank. And as ludicrous as the report was, at least the news station made a call to try and check.”
Even though KTVU made a phone call to confirm the names, it is still a very embarrassing moment for the station, and the journalism industry. KTVU will suffer, as they will lose something that is very important in journalism, which is their credibility.
