It's unbelievable that an anchor could read the four names they thought to be the pilots of the South Korean plane that crashed in San Francisco this summer, but she not only did so with a straight face but without realizing she and the station had been pranked.

You don't need to think quickly on your feet to be on tv; you need to clear your head and read what is on the screen, looking good and sounding confident. I feel for her, having trusted what she was reading was right. She hasn't been fired, though three others at the station have been, according to reports.

But the video is crazy to watch, listening to the names, which sound like "Something (is) wrong," "We ('re) too low," "Holy F---" and then relating the crash and injuries. It is incredibly disrespectful and proves that competent media people need to act as a filter but are vulnerable when met with the need for haste and being a target to pranksters and trolls.

You would think that she would realize instantly, but it didn't happen on the air. The correction came quickly, though.


A couple thoughts:

Though disrespectful and insensitive, the station is damaged by the airing of this gaffe, so no lawsuit is necessary. In fact, what kind of monetary damage could they seek. The station apologized, though the first on-air apology should have been more forceful and pointed out how stupid they were to let this through. They could have taken a cue from NBC's Brian Williams.

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Secondly, efforts by the station to scrub this off the internet should be battled by everyone who has access to a Twitter account, Facebook page, blog or other form of online media, with which to share this. Though KTVU should not be sued, they should not be able to remove the gaffe. They own this and cannot hide from it. The shame is not on the victims of the crash; rather, it is on the ones who produced this.

C'mon: The poor "Boom goes the dynamite" rookie student student sportscaster is still available, viewed more than eight million times.

Mitch Albom is sounding more old timely than usual, complaining about someone in Tennessee making a video of his wife's incredible fit and posting it to YouTube.

It's remarkable stuff, considering I have three young daughters and I've seen a few this bad. But this lady wants a cigarette and a trip to a lake.

Albom has some points to make about our society, youtube, a toilet, you know the gripe. Also, he seems interested in saving their marriage, a little bit of Dr. Phil leaking through. This, though, is what most shocked me: The column by someone posted on the freep.com comes with no link to the video let alone an embedded clip. For real.

Here is the video to watch. It's worth it, and more than 20,000 agree, at least with just this posted version:



And though I hate to promote such garbage and don't want to waste your time, here's a link to Mitch's gripe:

Read here.

Cheers, Simon McCoy, of the BBC, sharing the truth as he had the task of standing outside the London hospital and await the announcement of the royal baby.

Yes, it's the big news of the day, and it seems alright.

I am often critical of news, especially the "Today" show on NBC, that so  goes crazy for everything royal, even American royalty like the Kardashians.

And I often wonder what it will take for the British to stop paying, or allowing the royal to keep, so much money and do away with the tradition.

Many comments on our web site and on social media slam the media for its fascination about the royal baby, due any minute now. But it really is something that happens infrequently, so it is news. Sure, there's plenty of hysteria, but for something that happens over generation, it's understandable and many people are interested.

The only game to guess should be gender, though I wonder what kind of celebrity baby this one will be, born into the world of Twitter, Facebook, Tout and Instagram. Can they shield the child from cult of celebrity and many failures that breeds?

I'd guess girl just because the dad comes from a pair of boys, which would make this more unique, the first I think of a girl who is automatically in line for the throne.

The shame would be to take a true tragedy and make that the second story due to the prince or princess holding the top slot, but today also seems like a slower news day.

The jury spoke and it seems they followed the law in the George Zimmerman case. Yes, he escalated the fight with Trayvon Martin but he legally had a gun, and the jury found he did not act criminally or illegally when he used it.

Very sad all around.

But what outrage. Yes, I know, race is involved.

If 20 or more children or moviegoers get slaughtered and our nation's answer is to defend the right to own, carry and use a gun, then one teenager dying in a one-on-one fight isn't going to change anything.

No, I'm talking about going to heaven or hell, but it may seem like that.

Two stories today have dead people featured, and not the normal ones, tragedies in fatal accidents (we had one of those, with a nice couple killed on way home from a night out) and sad remembrances (our obituary pages filled up later in the week).

First up was a Russian man convicted of tax fraud or evasion, having whistle blown some dirty dealings and later being imprisoned and now convicted. Problem is, three years ago he died in prison. Is that a problem? I can see the state wanting to declare his assets stolen, but perhaps it's keeping his name in disgrace... especially if he really was a whistle blower.

But it goes to show that of the certainties in life, death and taxes, taxes are final.

And now there is this story, a man wins an election to become mayor. In Mexico, a town has a new mayor... kind of. He, too, is dead. Well, kinda dead. See, it turns out he is legally dead, having apparently faked his death to beat a sexual assault charge. So now, it appears he will lose his seat, either by being dead and unfit for office or being a fugitive from the law.

This follows the news of Mexico being now fatter than the U.S. Too bad for the small Mexican village, and it's much less heartwarming than the Minnesota town that just elected a 4-year-old boy to be mayor. 

Of course, these stories of dead people and new mayors were placed in the same section.

I had this story come in today and it's more good news, following the $2.6 billion milestone for Oakland County's Emerging Sectors investments:

An Auburn Hills-based auto supplier is seeking more than three dozen new employees at a two-day job fair in Orion Township this week.
U.S. Farathane, which supplies automakers with manufactured plastics, is hosting the job fair at SpringHill Suites at the corner of Dutton and Lapeer roads from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on both Thursday and Friday, said Gena Grzyb, human resources manager for the company.
Applicants may provide resumes, fill out applications and be interviewed on the spot. The company, whose website is www.usfarathane.com, has nine locations, seven of them in Michigan. They are hiring full-time machine operators as well as maintenance and plastic process technicians.
"We are offering competitive wages and benefits," said Grzyb, adding that applicants should have their high school diploma or GED.
The company, founded in 1971, has 1,300 employees and has headquarters near I-75 and University Drive.
The address for the hotel hosting the job fair is 4919 Interpark Drive, Orion Township.

One crash was much more deadly, a small plane crashed on take off in Alaska, killing on 10 on board.

The bigger story though was the dramatic escape by dozens, or hundreds, of passengers from the Asiana Airways plane that crashed in San Fransisco. No video footage was necessary to highlight the intense escape that many endured as fire burned the top of the aircraft up. Luckily, only two died, one perhaps after escaping.

For me, it highlights that despite the dangers, air travel can be quite safe, seeing how this plane survived a crash landing long enough for so many to survive. And Alaska's incident shows how quickly it can all go wrong.

Lot less news about gas prices, but it should be noted they have quickly fallen from their mid-June highs.

Yes, it is nice paying less. Yes, it is frustrating when they shoot up, but there seems less relief when they go down.

But knowing details helps. Again, as I've said, seeing the green to yellow to red light in my car and seeing the up and down of the miles per gallon has improved my gas mileage.

Just seeing that number change makes it easy to not race to the next light and puts an emphasis on coasting. I've gotten the number from 16-miles-per-gallong to up to 20. A trip on the highway has me at 23, and I'm working to keep it there.

The trip took me to a McDonald's for the first time in a while, meeting family to drop off daughters for a visit (picking up halfway), and I was amazed at the calorie counts on the menu. They were more prominent than the prices, and believe me, they make one reconsider what to order.

Used to be it was easy to add an item because it was a dollar, but not when it adds 500 calories. Information helps.

Makes me wonder what the big deal is with Snowden telling that the government uses the information that is available.

My heart goes out to the families of the firefighters killed in Arizona this weekend. What a shocking tragedy, reminding us all of the value of their work and the dangers all emergency workers, especially firefighters, face.