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Frank Somerville's Apology
"Before I post anything else I have to address what happened on our Noon newscast.
Someone pranked us about the names of the 4 pilots on Asiana Flight 214.
And what we put on the screen and what we read over the air was insulting.
It was insulting to the Asian community.
It was insulting to the four pilots.
And it was insulting to our viewers.
The bottom line is that we messed up.
Yes, we called the NTSB to confirm.
And yes, the NTSB released a statement saying:
“Earlier today, in response to an inquiry from a media outlet, a summer intern acted outside the scope of his authority when he erroneously confirmed the names of the flight crew on the aircraft.”
But regardless we still put it on the air.
And we have no one to blame but us.
We should have known better.
We have a number of checks that scripts have to go thru before they reach the anchor desk.
Somehow on the Noon news this one slipped through.
I don’t understand why anyone would think doing something like this is funny.
A plane crashed.
Three people were killed.
Many more were injured.
Some of those injuries are life changing.
Yet someone thinks it’s funny to make jokes about the names of the pilots.
That makes me sick.
I’ve worked at KTVU for over 20 years.
We have a damn good staff.
We care deeply about what we do.
And we do not take mistakes like this lightly.
Everyone is seriously upset about what happened.
And everyone is going to make sure something like this NEVER happens again.
I always tell my kids, “If you make a mistake, come clean, admit what you did, say you’re sorry, and take the consequences.”
So that’s what I’m doing here.
We made a HUGE mistake.
There is NO excuse for what happened.
And speaking for everyone at the station, we are sorry."