Nearly two weeks after Oakland TV station KTVU became the laughing stock of the season for airing an “exclusive” list of obviously bogus Asiana airline pilot names, three producers at the station have been given the axe.

For those who weren’t looking at the Internet in mid-July, the station claimed to have actually confirmed the following pilot names with the National Transporation Safety Board — Captain Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee Fuk, and Bang Ding Ow.

To repeat, those names actually made all the way through levels of KTVU staffers and onto the air, where a professional news reader actually spoke them without once stopping herself and saying “Wait a second…”

And so, reports SFgate.com, the station — which had to do an awful lot of apologizing and was even threatened with legal action by Asiana — has fired three veteran producers.

In an exclusive to Consumerist, a KTVU intern has confirmed the names of the producers are:
-Howe Gullible
-E. Zleefooled
-Flippin’ Moron (no relation to yours truly)

In actuality, the fired folks are an investigative producer, a special projects producer, and a producer, none of whom you’ve probably ever heard of unless you went to high school with them, and all of whom were reportedly found liable after an internal investigation into how human beings can be so incredibly stupid.

Cox Communications, which owns KTVU, has been sending DMCA takedown notices to YouTube and other video-hosting services in an attempt to minimize the online replays of the July 12 broadcast.

The station manager claims this isn’t about reducing the station’s humiliation but about not offending anyone else.

“Most people have seen it,” he explained, “continuing to show the video is also insensitive and offensive, especially to the many in our Asian community.”

The big unanswered question about this whole debacle is where the names came from. SFgate’s insiders say an expert source that had worked with KTVU before had e-mailed the names to the station.

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