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Broadcasting False Alarm Triggers Korean Joy Followed by Anger
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| South
Korea team sing the national anthem near their flag at their
World Cup semi-final match against Germany in Seoul June 25,
2002.
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SEOUL,
June 27 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - World Cup chaos broke out
Thursday, June 27, in South Korea after a major radio station
broadcast that Germany had been disqualified from the World Cup final
against Brazil, and that South Korea would play instead.
Shoppers
in department stores cheered and World Cup organizers were flooded
with phone calls after TV actress Choi Hwa-Jung wrongly announced that
Germany had been disqualified after a player failed a drug test. But
the raptures soon turned to anger, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.
SBS
Power FM, one of South Korea’s most popular radio stations, made
several apologies and the Korean World Cup Organizing Committee
(KOWOC) had to release an official statement saying it was not true.
Germany
beat South Korea 1-0 in the semi-final on Tuesday, June 25, ending the
co-host’s dream run in the World Cup which had sparked nationwide
football fever.
Choi
received a mobile phone text message from her assistant who had been
told by a friend that Germany had been disqualified from Sunday’s
final in Yokohama, the embarrassed radio station said.
But
there was panic in the studio when she immediately announced the
“good news” on air on her daily talk show.
SBS
officials said production operators frantically gestured to Choi to
keep quiet but failed.
“After
receiving the message from her assistant, she became too excited and
read it into the microphone,” an SBS spokesman said.
“There
was a pandemonium in the main control room. About four minutes later,
the message was confirmed to be false and she apologized four times
for airing the wrong message without checking,” he told AFP.
Yonhap
news agency said hundreds of shoppers in a department store in Busan
went into raptures after hearing the broadcast.
News
media, the World Cup organizing committee and government ministries
were all flooded with phone calls to find out if the news was right.
Leading internet sites reported the announcement as if it were an
authentic news report, AFP reported.
KOWOC
put out a statement saying that all the German players tested for
drugs after the semi-final were negative as it sought to calm the new
fever.
And
as the blunder sank in, angry listeners inundated the SBS switchboard
and its Internet site with protest calls and messages.
“We
feel sorry for causing the public uproar by airing a groundless
rumor,” SBS chief producer Kim Sang-Il said.
“There
is a high possibility of the producers in charge being punished for
the incident,” he said.
Wild
rumors about the World Cup have been rampant on South Korean internet
sites.
One
false news story posted on one site said a foreign news agency had
“confirmed” that Korea had bribed their way through to the
semi-finals.
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