Asiana Airlines announced that it will sue KTVU Oakland-San
Francisco, according to the AP, after the Fox affiliate reported bogus and
racially offensive names for the pilots on board the plane during the crash
July 6.
The airline said the erroneous report damaged the airline's
reputation, and a spokeswoman told the AP it chooses to "strongly respond
to its racially discriminatory report."
KTVU apologized promptly on air July 12.
"We made several mistakes when we received this
information. First, we never read the names out loud, phonetically sounding
them out," the station said online. "Then, during our phone call to
the NTSB where the person confirmed the spellings of the names, we never asked
that person to give us their position within the agency. We heard this person
verify the information without questioning who they were and then rushed the
names on our noon newscast."
KTVU is the Fox affiliate in DMA No. 6. Lee
Rosenthal took over as news director in April.
Kelly Nantel, director of public affairs at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), declined to confirm or deny a report Monday that the intern who confirmed the names to KTVU had been let go. "We do not discuss or disclose information relating to personnel matters," she told B&C/Multi. But she did say that the agency "has taken appropriate action to deal with the situation."
She also said NTSB was still reviewing its policies and procedures to figure out how to make sure this doesn't happen again.
