Doordarshan sacks newsreader over 'Eleven Jinping' blunder
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NEW DELHI: Pronouncing foreign leaders' names is a headache for newsreaders the world over but on Friday it proved the downfall of one Indian newscaster, who mistook the visiting Chinese president's name for the Roman numeral XI, calling him “Eleven Jinping” on air.
The blunder occurred late Thursday night in a report by India's public broadcaster Doordarshan on President Xi Jinping's high-profile first state visit to India.
After hours of unconfirmed reports, Doordarshan announced Friday afternoon on its official Twitter handle that the anchor in question had been sacked but declined to name them.
Doordarshan chief executive Jawahar Sircar said that steps had been taken to avoid a repeat of such an incident.
“We've taken action plus (we are) upgrading systems,” Sircar tweeted. The broadcaster did not immediately return AFP's calls for comment.
Doordarshan, once the only choice for television viewers in India, has suffered a steep decline in influence since private television channels began airing in the early 1990s.
The blunder is an embarrassment for the government of India's new Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who rolled out the red carpet for Xi, spending his 64th birthday hosting a dinner for the Chinese president in a luxury riverside tent in his home city Ahmedabad.
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Sep 20, 2014 11:11am
Proper way should have been apology, not sacking, unless it was proved that it was intentional. This error does not look intentional.
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Sep 20, 2014 11:38am
What is in name ? call a rose in any name.Will the chinese news caster pronounce
Mustansar Hossain tarar properly ?
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Sep 20, 2014 11:45am
It happens , i don't mind , please reinstate the poor woman.
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Sep 20, 2014 11:47am
Misuse of power by DD , it should not have sacked the poor woman, instead should have taken this incident in a lighter vein, no damage done to anybody and people who realised the blunder would have a laugh , Modi should impress upon DD to reinstate the person immediately , instead the person who sacked her should be sacked for lack of humanity.
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Sep 20, 2014 12:05pm
hahahahahaha
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Sep 20, 2014 12:06pm
hahahahaha
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Sep 20, 2014 12:07pm
What foolish thing done by govt.channel,on private channels man anchors pronounced the word "Xi" as "She",but nobody there sacked the anchors by saying that you have changed the gender of chinese president.
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Sep 20, 2014 12:12pm
Watch, this anchor may end up with a private channel with a bigger pay packet.
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Sep 20, 2014 12:45pm
Lakeer ke Faqeer.....national broadcaster of India!
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Sep 20, 2014 01:10pm
I have myself noticed lots of mistakes in the pronounciation of asian leader's names by sky news, CNN and BBC newscasters. Doordarshan wanted to save its image
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Sep 20, 2014 01:21pm
To err is human.
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Sep 20, 2014 01:29pm
The buck should not stop at her level........it's just wrong.
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Sep 20, 2014 01:51pm
@Dr Hemant Junnarkar - From Pakistan I second your opinion doctor sahib. It was primarily the sheer irresponsibility of the 'Editorial Team' & the 'News Content Producer' to prepare the poor (read helpless from the perspective of the South-Asian bureaucracy standards) fellow. If the head(s) have to be rolled then it should be from the top instead from the bottom line of the bad execution. Higher-ups from "Prasar Bharati" & the honorable Union minister Mr. Prakash Javadekar should take notice of this incident immediately instead of enjoying their weekend at 'Delhi Club', to create a good precedence for the South-Asian/Indo-Pak bureaucracy accountability standards.
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Sep 20, 2014 02:01pm
dont think it would be embarrassing for modi.. too small an incident
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Sep 20, 2014 02:11pm
Can't blame the newsreader the Chinese language was Latin to her, quite understandable if she mixed it up for Roman numerals, only it does not come with an "i".
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Sep 20, 2014 02:14pm
Honorable President Xi Jinping ,please pronounce Laxmikant peyarelal and Kalyan jee Anand jee.
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Sep 20, 2014 02:30pm
Everything will be fine. This is standard Hindutava cunning. A double trick: Stage something. Make a scene on the international platform. Then have a laugh behind the visitors back while apologizing to him at the front. It was all a set up.
A Doordarshan Drama !
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Sep 20, 2014 02:30pm
Incompetence! An announcer who had not practised to pronounce the name of a visiting word leader let loose, shows the incompetence of higher ups who gave her the job and they should be sacked as well. Laziness in any profession should not be tolerated.
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Sep 20, 2014 03:34pm
the problem was not pronunciation but she read it eleven zingping by thinking xi as roman eleven, certainly it was very shameful for the public broadcaster which is looking to reinvent itself.
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Sep 20, 2014 04:18pm
Let Xi remember that I'm the 14th Dalai Lama but he's only the 11th Jinping.
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Sep 20, 2014 05:07pm
She thought it was a friendly one day match ;-)
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Sep 20, 2014 05:35pm
Why is this a problem? Ask the Chinese president to say "Nawaz shareef" and he will say "Nawaz shaleeef" the language does not have the letter "r".
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Sep 20, 2014 06:47pm
If you are in the field of journalism, sorry you should know how to pronounce the big leader visiting your country. Pure laziness, this is competitive world, can't afford to make mistakes like that.
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Sep 20, 2014 06:53pm
@Harry
We do pronounce is "Pakistan is a failed state" very well....will that do?
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Sep 20, 2014 07:09pm
Who watches English news on doordarshan??? Seriously? I would like to find out how many Indians actually would have known about this blunder had there been no sacking.
Doordarshan guys are employed by govt. And they are some of the most unproductive people on this planet. Free loaders.
I tend to beleive that top bosses of doordarshan do not have enough business acumen to run TV repair shops...and they are running huge comapnies just because they managed to pass some written exam 30 years ago. Bunch of incompetents.
This is just a minor error if you consider uselessness of doordarshan.
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Sep 20, 2014 07:11pm
Would the Indians like it if there leader was called, ' Naentendo Moti' by a Chinese newscaster.
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Sep 20, 2014 08:12pm
Anchor knew Roman Numerals. She looks educated
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Sep 20, 2014 08:28pm
@zak
As long as the Chinese keep investing in the Indian economy in $100-billion tranches, they can call our PM "Nunchaku" for all I care....the moolah man, it's the moolah
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Sep 20, 2014 08:28pm
@zak
As long as the Chinese keep investing in the Indian economy in $100-billion tranches, they can call our PM "Nunchaku" for all I care....the moolah man, it's the moolah
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Sep 20, 2014 08:47pm
As long as the Chinese news readers don't pronounce "Modi" as "Mo five-hundred-and-one", we'll all be OK! (Mo-DI; D = 500 in Roman numerals, DI = 501)
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Sep 20, 2014 09:15pm
@Dr Hemant Junnarkar Most of the DD employees should have been sacked long ago, behaving like sakari damads.
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Sep 20, 2014 09:16pm
@Zafar Iqbal That is one thing Shakespeare got wrong, in real world name does matter.
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Sep 20, 2014 10:01pm
Xi or Shi in chinese means TEN. Newscaster was only off by One!
@UnshacklePak
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Sep 20, 2014 11:27pm
@El Cid cunning? Nice choice of words.
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Sep 20, 2014 11:41pm
To suggest that it was a blunder or a mistake is laughable. First common sense should have had prevailed, as no one in this world would name their children with Roman Numerals. Except for example if it is Richard I or Richard IV or so on. But to think that someone has the number all the way to Eleven is ridiculous. Also Roman Numerals are added at the end of the name not before. I think she was having fun and paid a price for it.
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Sep 21, 2014 12:05am
This is just as ridiculous as it can get. An error like this has little or nothing to do with the government of India being embarrassed. It is the fancy of media.
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Sep 21, 2014 12:07am
@Intelligent I supposed it is pronounced she, isn't it?
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Sep 21, 2014 12:10am
@Zafar Iqbal Very Good !:):):):):):):):)
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Sep 21, 2014 01:08am
I think it is too harsh. Everyone has a bad day once in a while.
No gora anchor person can pronounce the name of desi leader correctly.
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Sep 21, 2014 01:46am
Could've been worst if called Eleven Ping Pong...
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Sep 21, 2014 02:59am
@Calcutta Man that too coming from a man from the poorest country in the world where people starve to death.
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Sep 21, 2014 04:25am
@N.
I think you are right and 'Xi' is indeed pronounced as 'She' in Chinese.
I think the anchor should be disciplined for such an embarrassment but outright sacking over such matters can only happen in countries where employees don't have many rights (or these are not well protected).
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Sep 21, 2014 05:24am
I'm laughing so hard. Sure it's not his fault that he didn't know how to pronounce it but to think that Xi means Roman numerals for a Chinese name doesn't really make sense at all. Anyone in sensible sense wouldn't think that.
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Sep 21, 2014 06:32am
I have heard funny names from foreign news anchors for Asian head of states.... nothing new... DD news anchor does not know Chinese names they should practice along with English names...
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Sep 21, 2014 06:36am
@zak
No but XI can be misread as 11 ( recall Roman Numerals).
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Sep 21, 2014 06:59am
This is the right way forward. Moodi is a mature leader and respect to every one has to be given especially to foreign head of states. It is not about the name it is about a principle stand and if the news caster can not understand that too bad.
Look at us we should on to of the container insults to institutions people who are heading it in the most disgusting way. This is not politics to attack people personally distort their names and diminish all the institution that exist in this country. This is counter productive and will never bring change only hatred.
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Sep 22, 2014 06:35pm
@Intelligent It is infact pronounced as 'She' dear. There is a Chinese phone maker 'Xiaomi'. It actually is 'Sheomi.' It is like this in China. But feeling bad for the lady. Nobody is perfect in English and now here comes Chinese.
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Sep 22, 2014 07:57pm
@Intelligent Xi is pronounced as she as in - she Jin pin
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Sep 22, 2014 10:48pm
This name is easy to pronounce, I think it was a deliberate attempt to mispronounce the visiting Chinese President's name.
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