The Asiana Crash Media Failure

Long after the actual crash of the Asiana flight at San Francisco is forgotten, the lesson for journalists and for students studying to be journalists will remain.

The lesson is about check, recheck, and use some common sense when reporting.

KTVU says its staff confirmed the four bogus names of the pilots of the plane. The National Transportation Safety Board admitted that one of its interns also confirmed the names -- but the names were not only bogus, they were insulting.

Someone in the KTVU newsroom should have read the copy and at least questioned how to pronounce the names. Once they got the "pronunciation" correct, then it probably would have been clear that the names given to the newsroom were a hoax.

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvspy/fil...rew304x200.jpg

When watching the video of the KTVU news report, you have to wonder if anybody actually read the script first, before the broadcast?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1JYH...embedded#at=11

Some of the most important words in journalism are: confirmation, verification, attribution, reliability, check, re-check, honesty, authentication.