# Oh God- Anchor straight reads racist joke names of Asiana pilots **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 13, 2013, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-god-anchor-straight-reads-racist-joke-names-of-asiana-pilots/663380 "2013-07-13T01:59:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-god-anchor-straight-reads-racist-joke-names-of-asiana-pilots/663380/1 "2013-07-13T01:59:56Z")
Not even a pause as she sounds the names out. [KTVU Reports Racist Joke As Names Of Asiana 214 Pilots (VIDEO) (UPDATE)](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/12/asiana-pilots-fake-names-racist_n_3588569.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular) ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-god-anchor-straight-reads-racist-joke-names-of-asiana-pilots/663380/2 "2013-07-13T02:09:13Z")
Mentioned in the [plane crash thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=16467549&postcount=185) by some dashing poster or another ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-god-anchor-straight-reads-racist-joke-names-of-asiana-pilots/663380/3 "2013-07-13T02:31:24Z")
> [@](#): > > The problem was that the names — “Sum Ting Wong,” “Wi Tu Lo,” “Ho Lee Fuk” and “Bang Ding Ow” — were obviously fake. The news anchor read the names off the teleprompter and didn’t bat an eye, adding that the information had been confirmed by the National Transportation Safety Board. I wouldn’t say they were racist, just funny. If they hadn’t been put into Pidgin English, the newscaster would have caught on much quicker. Is it racist to say someone’s name was “Ben Dover” or “I. P. Nightly”? ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-god-anchor-straight-reads-racist-joke-names-of-asiana-pilots/663380/4 "2013-07-13T02:38:39Z")
I’ll refer to my comment right after **Morbo** ’s in the linked thread. But it’s something to see, how the spirit of Ron Burgundy is alive and well. There’s obviously now a new vacancy for an intern at NTSB… ---
**Author:** ![Accidental\_Martyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-god-anchor-straight-reads-racist-joke-names-of-asiana-pilots/663380/5 "2013-07-13T02:39:02Z")
KTVU says the names were confirmed by NTSB. NTSB says they don’t release pilot names and that a summer intern is responsible. Why would someone go to the trouble of getting an internship at the NTSB and then pull a prank like this? (If this is really what happened.) Of course, several people at the TV station should have realized the names were a joke and never have let them on the air. Pretty unbelievable all the way around. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-god-anchor-straight-reads-racist-joke-names-of-asiana-pilots/663380/6 "2013-07-13T03:29:41Z")
How could this TV anchor be so gullible? I don’t care what some dufus at the NTSB said. There’s no way I’d use those names in a news story. I gotta admit, Ho Lee Fuk did make me laugh. 😛 But journalists shouldn’t be this dumb. This should have never gotten on the air. > **[San Francisco plane crash: TV station duped into giving racist, false names...](https://www.nydailynews.com/2013/07/12/san-francisco-plane-crash-tv-station-duped-into-giving-racist-false-names-of-pilots-by-ntsb-intern/)** > > An Oakland TV station was apparently duped into giving racist, incorrect names for the pilots of the Boeing 777 that crash landed at a San Francisco airport on Saturday. Anchor Tori Campbell of KTV… > [@](#): > > “The NTSB has confirmed these are the names of the pilots on board Flight 214 when it crashed,” Campbell said during the noon report. “We are working to determine what roles each of them played during the landing on Saturday.” > > The station later apologized with Campbell saying on the air: “These names were not accurate despite an NTSB official confirming them this morning. We apologize for this error.” ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-god-anchor-straight-reads-racist-joke-names-of-asiana-pilots/663380/7 "2013-07-13T03:36:07Z")
The demise of professional journalism due to the Internet has made such things much more common. They don’t have the resources to fact-check everything, so they take AP stories and add some local connection or they simply run with what they’re told. A simple reading of the names should have given the prank away, but they were confirmed by an intern at the NTSB, so who are they to doubt its authenticity? Ed Murrow is rolling over in his grave, and Ben Bradlee just went apoplectic. The demise of journalism is almost complete. Your blog now carries about the same weight as the _New York Times_, and given enough time will probably be quoted by them as God’s own truth. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-god-anchor-straight-reads-racist-joke-names-of-asiana-pilots/663380/8 "2013-07-13T03:39:39Z")
I’m sure that part of the problem was that the names were not said out loud until the anchor did so on air. The part I really don’t understand is where the names came from to begin with- all the stories say the NTSB intern “confirmed” the names , which sounds to me like the station got the names from some other source and \*then \*called the NTSB. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-god-anchor-straight-reads-racist-joke-names-of-asiana-pilots/663380/9 "2013-07-13T04:01:53Z")
The tv anchor had an odd look on her face after reading the names. I’m pretty sure she realized then that she’d been pranked. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-god-anchor-straight-reads-racist-joke-names-of-asiana-pilots/663380/10 "2013-07-13T04:05:15Z")
Ho Lee Fuk? I thought he was a restaurateur in Soho. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-god-anchor-straight-reads-racist-joke-names-of-asiana-pilots/663380/11 "2013-07-13T04:07:22Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Ho Lee Fuk? I thought he was a restaurateur in Soho. Different guy. The restauranteur was Lee Ho Fook. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-god-anchor-straight-reads-racist-joke-names-of-asiana-pilots/663380/12 "2013-07-13T04:08:58Z")
[Previous thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=696385). ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-god-anchor-straight-reads-racist-joke-names-of-asiana-pilots/663380/13 "2013-07-13T04:14:26Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > [Previous thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=696385). Merged threads. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-god-anchor-straight-reads-racist-joke-names-of-asiana-pilots/663380/14 "2013-07-13T04:18:51Z")
One of my partners in crime in radio fed the news director the name “Ima June Bugg” in a piece of copy and it got on the air. But something like this is in a whole other dimension. I laughed. But I imagine the TV news crew was mortified, as they should be. I was once an entirely innocent perpetrator of a giggling fit on the part of a radio newswoman, who unfortunately was reading a story about a gruesome local accident. Topping that was the [recent case of an Australian TV news anchor](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx1TtRJmY-c&noredirect=1) who managed to giggle her way through stories about Brazilian rioting and a fatal building collapse in Mumbai (the disaster unfolds about 55 seconds into the video). Urgh. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-god-anchor-straight-reads-racist-joke-names-of-asiana-pilots/663380/15 "2013-07-13T04:24:57Z")
When I stopped laughing, I thought of this bit from [SNL](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XMr3QO2Sbc&list=PL3923A1DDB0EC5344) ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-god-anchor-straight-reads-racist-joke-names-of-asiana-pilots/663380/16 "2013-07-13T04:30:11Z")
The thread title is wrong. There’s nothing racist about making puns of names. Ben Dover, Ima Hog, Ura Hog and others have made people laugh for a hundred years. Why should we tiptoe around Asian names? Any name can be turned into a pun if someone is clever enough. I got a cousin with the last name Tucker. yeah he was called a little Fucker in school. Nothing racist about it. He finally embraced it and used the nickname sometimes himself. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-god-anchor-straight-reads-racist-joke-names-of-asiana-pilots/663380/17 "2013-07-13T04:33:06Z")
As long as we’re going down that road, [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3umkSmzILKU#t=0m55s) has always been one of my favorites. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-god-anchor-straight-reads-racist-joke-names-of-asiana-pilots/663380/18 "2013-07-13T04:34:19Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > I’m sure that part of the problem was that the names were not said out loud until the anchor did so on air. I didn’t get “Sum Ting Wong” or “Wi Tu Lo” until I heard the anchor actually read them. But c’mon, the name “Ho Lee Fuk” should’ve been a red flag that sum ting was wong. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-god-anchor-straight-reads-racist-joke-names-of-asiana-pilots/663380/19 "2013-07-13T04:41:38Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > They don’t have the resources to fact-check everything, so they take AP stories and add some local connection or they simply run with what they’re told. It’s a Fox affiliate. Since when did fact-checking become part of their job? ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-god-anchor-straight-reads-racist-joke-names-of-asiana-pilots/663380/20 "2013-07-13T04:51:06Z")
> [@runner pat](#): > > It’s a Fox affiliate. Since when did fact-checking become part of their job? PING: Dan Rather. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-god-anchor-straight-reads-racist-joke-names-of-asiana-pilots/663380.md?page=2)