Hey Tony ... I realize you don't know specifics of this case but in general how did this info get from person A to all the way to person B reading it on the teleprompter?
Well, someone at the TV station got wind that those were the names...either by email or phone call. The person taking that information (production assistant [PA]) in is first in the chain. Then they verified that with the NTSB office (how they verified that is another story). Then, the PA tells the producer "hey I have the pilot names". Producer either failed to ask what they were, or failed to realize they were fake names.....producer is #2.
Then, the producer tells the graphics people to make the fullscreen graphic panel. Assume at a local new station, only one person is doing the graphics, but in a larger broadcast like SanFran it could be 2 or 3. Someone in graphics had to type that panel, and they, along with the PA who wrote the names down in the first place, are the most at fault here. It is not the graphic op's job to QC for content accuracy, but goddamn, how do you not realize those names are fake while you are typing the panel out and loading it into the graphics machine? #3 (maybe more here at this step).
Next up we have the final step before it goes down to the studio and live to the air. The 2 people running the show are the director and technical director (TD). There are 2 huge screens RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM that show what is currently on-air, and what the next source will be (in this case the next source is the pilot name fullscreen). The panel where they talked about the girl who got hit by the fire truck was the preceding source and it was on-air for 15 seconds, meaning the easy-to-read pilot name fullscreen was staring them in the face for 15 seconds (an eternity in TV time) in the preview monitor before going live over the air. The director tells the TD what sources to take. #4 & 5.
Once it hits air, I believe the anchor is reading the names straight off the monitor in the desk, not a paper script. This event was breaking news, so likely everything was thrown together really quick and the producer just told the anchor "just read the names straight off the panel". I assume in this case, the anchor had no previous warning and was reading this on the fly. If they had a paper script in front of them, it is more likely they would have also caught the error because they like to glance over stuff like that real quick for pronunciation purposes. I truly believe the anchor had no heads up and because these were Asian names, didn't realize it as she was reading it. She got really burned by the rest of her crew and I would feel sorry for her if she didn't read the names with such hilarious conviction. #6
As you can see, no less than 6 people should have caught this. At a larger station like KUTV, I'd wager almost 10 people should have caught this.
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