The case of the dreadful crash landing of Asiana flight 214 in San Francisco has been in the news for days.

The cable news channels are under a lot of pressure to produce a constant stream of exciting new revelations, facts and turn of events. So much so that at times the quality of the story and the fact checking seems to be secondary.

A fine example is a recent story at Fox News affiliate KTVU in which the news lady announces that they have learned the names of the four pilots onboard the 777 jetliner – only to later find out that they had fallen victim to a prank.

As embarrassing (and funny) as this may be for KTVU and the poor news reading drone, it is also a result of an audience demanding more news all the time.

Yours truly, Captain Sum Ting Wong

To be continued…