Free Republic

Former KTVU anchor Frank Somerville’s tumultuous couple of years took another turn on Monday night when he was arrested in Berkeley following an alleged physical altercation with his brother. Berkeley Scanner reported that police arrived at the home of Somerville's parents in the Berkeley Hills just after 6:30 p.m. Monday. Police allegedly found Somerville being restrained by his brother, who told the Berkeley Scanner that he and Frank got into a fight after Frank made threats against their father. According to Alameda County jail records, Somerville, 65, was booked on suspicion of battery with serious bodily injury, threatening a crime...

OAKLAND, Calif. - An armed security guard protecting a local news crew on Wednesday afternoon was shot during an attempted robbery in Oakland, police said. The shooting was reported about 12:30 p.m. in the 300 block of 14th and Webster streets in downtown Oakland.

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A 22-year-old father of six was brutally murdered in broad daylight Saturday while standing in a restaurant parking lot in downtown San Jose and a nearby surveillance camera captured the entire scene. Witnesses too scared to go on camera told KTVU that the shooting stemmed from a fight, saying someone struck the victim, 22-year-old Ramon Garcia with axe-like weapon before he was shot and killed. Later that night, a woman dropped by the scene and lit candles near the spot where Garcia was found. She would not identify herself but she told KTVU that she had...

People across the United States are hot under the collar these days, and not just because of record high temperatures. No, they are letting off steam over last week’s acquittal of George Zimmerman by a Florida jury. For many, the blood began to boil about this time last year when word trickled out of Sanford (pop. 53,570) that a Hispanic neighborhood watcher shot and killed a teenage boy during a physical encounter at an apartment complex. That is not entirely true. The story that caught the attention of civil rights activists and the national media was that a white cop-wannabe...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Oh, yeah. If you go to Twitter, if you go to Facebook -- hell, if you go to comments, anywhere -- "It's so racist! It's just offensive as it can be. I can't believe people actually thought these were real." I can just see these little people in their pajamas writing these comments on Twitter over what happened on KTVU Channel 2 (I think it's Channel 2) in Oakland, in the Bay Area. It's a Fox affiliate, and that probably ticked 'em off even more. You had this clueless infobabe. I mean, folks, I hope you've had...

Both the (Transportation Safety Board") and KTVU-TV of Oakland, Calif., have apologized for a mistake that led the television station to broadcast incorrect – and racially insensitive – names of the pilots of Asiana Flight 214, which crashed at San Francisco airport July 6, killing three. But the airline is considering legal action against the two organizations, (CNN reports). KTVU on Friday reported what it thought were the names of the Asiana pilots, but the names were clearly fabrications intended as crude phonetic jokes. One of the pilot names reported by KTVU, for instance, was "Wi Tu Lo."

This would be the intern who confirmed to local news station KTVU that the Asiana Airlines pilots who crash-landed that plane in San Francisco were named Sum Ting Wong, Ho Lee xxx, and so on. It's still unclear why the intern did this, or why KTVU asked the intern to do this. Everyone is terrible.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Asiana announced Monday that it will sue a San Francisco TV station that it said damaged the airline's reputation by using bogus and racially offensive names for four pilots on a plane that crashed earlier this month in San Francisco. ------- Asiana has decided to sue KTVU-TV to "strongly respond to its racially discriminatory report" that disparaged Asians, Asiana spokeswoman Lee Hyomin said. She said the airline will likely file suit in U.S. courts. She said the report seriously damaged Asiana's reputation. Asiana decided not to sue the NTSB because it said it was the...

Co-anchor Tori Campbell told viewers during the noon newscast Friday,"KTVU has just learned the names of the four pilots who were on board" the flight that crashed at San Francisco International Airport a week ago. She proceeded to read from a teleprompter the names that may have originated as a racially insensitive joke online — "Sum Ting Wong," "Wi Tu Lo," "Ho Lee Fuk," and "Bang Ding Ow"— while a TV graphic displayed the names next to a photo of the charred cabin.

The National Transportation Safety Board has released a statement revealing the source of Friday afternoon's embarassing KTVU hoax -a summer intern for the agency who "acted outside the scope if his authority" and "erroneously confirmed the names of the flight crew" on the Asiana plane that crashed in San Francisco.The Bay Area TV station read the racist crew names on air: Captain Sum Ting Wong, We Tu Low, Ho Lee Fuk, and Bang Ding Ow.

Bay Area television station KTVU incorrectly reported the names of the pilots flying the ill-fated Asiana Airlines Flight 214 using racially insensitive monikers. The segment on Friday at noon that referred to two of the pilots as "Captain Sum Ting Wong," and "Wi Tu Lo," has gone viral and drawn heavy criticism on the Internet.

TV station KTVU was apparently on the bad end of a prank earlier today, when it supposedly reported the names of the pilots on Asiana flight 214:

Bay Area news station KTVU just reported that the pilots of Asiana's disastrous flight 214 were the crack team of "Sum Ting Wong," "Wi Tu Lo," "Ho Lee Fuk," and "Bang Ding Ow." Despite the names obviously being just a bunch of racist jokes, KTVU, which has since apologized for the report, claims in a statement given to Gawker—and read on the air—that an NTSB official confirmed the names to them earlier today. EARLIER IN THE NEWSCAST WE GAVE SOME NAMES OF PILOTS INVOLVED IN THE ASIANA AIRLINES CRASH. THESE NAMES WERE NOT ACCURATE DESPITE AN N-T-S-B OFFICIAL IN WASHINGTON...

OAKLAND -- Thieves smashed a window of a KTVU news van parked in West Oakland for an assignment Thursday and stole roughly $20,000 worth of laptops and other electronic equipment, the latest in a long string of heists against reporters and photographers. --SNIP-- News photographers and reporters have been robbed and burglarized so many times since last spring that some stations are sending armed guards with media crews doing stories in Oakland.

Just watched Randy Shandobil reporting for KCTU News (Channel 2 San Francisco Bay Area). The sneering report elevated Dem candidate Jerry Brown for using Dem party funds and smirked/sneered about the fact that the two republican candidates are spending their own money EVEN THOUGH THEY 'CLAIM' TO BE FISCAL CONSERVATIVES! The reporter emphasized this but I really don't get his point - using your own money means you aren't fiscally conservative?? That was the direction of the reporter's coverage - 'look at these hypocritical republicans!'. Here's an annoying excerpt (the channels' webpage has a transcript): "Political reporter Randy Shandobil pointed...