More than two weeks after airing footage of random Asian people for a news story about South Koreans who were upset about the ferry disaster that killed hundreds, Fox News acknowledged its error and expressed regret.
The April 19 news segment on Fox News, which aired three days after the tragedy occurred, had the broadcaster talking about South Koreans upset over the victims who couldn’t escape the sunken ship, but instead of showing related footage from Korea, it showed footage of Asian people who clearly aren’t Korean. Some who have seen the footage speculate that it may have been from a news feed in Nepal, when an avalanche on Mount Everest last month killed 16 Sherpa guides.
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“The wrong video was mistakenly pulled from the international feed,” said David Clark, the Fox News executive producer of weekend news and programming, in a statement. “We regret this error and have corrected the footage online and will address it on air, as well.”
The segment with the erroneous footage was still on the network’s website for weeks after it aired on live television. Although Fox said the footage was corrected, it appeared to have been deleted altogether on Monday.
Even though charactermedia.com reported on Fox News’ error on April 25 and followed up with calls to Fox, the network’s spokesperson said it was unaware of any complaints about the erroneous news segment until Monday. Other media, including the Washington Post, recently picked up the story.
Rick Phillips of the Korean Cultural Center in Los Angeles, which operates under the South Korean government’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, first brought the matter to KoreAm‘s attention. He said he tried calling and emailing several producers at Fox News repeatedly over the past couple of weeks, but never received a response.
“What [Fox News] did was pretty ridiculous,” said Phillips . “It’s unbelievable.”
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