Chinese Television System (CTS) said Thursday that a total of eight people, including news producers and editors, had received reprimands for mistakenly running news tickers on Wednesday indicating that China was attacking Taiwan.

In the cable TV station’s morning news program Wednesday, news tickers ran messages saying “New Taipei City hit by People’s Liberation Army ground force missiles” and “Vessel explodes in Taipei Harbor, facilities, ships destroyed.”

The messages also included: “On the brink of war” and “Chinese Communist Party gears up for war, [Taiwan] President declares a state of emergency.”

In a statement issued Thursday, CTS said that “as part of the public Taiwan Broadcasting System, such mistakes will not be tolerated,” adding that the station would cooperate with the National Communications Commission’s (NCC) investigation into the incident.

CTS had said Wednesday that the messages, which were used as displays in a video on disaster-prevention, appeared on the screen due to a technical error.

Chen Ya-lin (???), who is acting general manager and CTS News Department chief editor, apologized for the incident in a video message Wednesday.

“Colleagues responsible for the technical error, as well as related personnel, supervisors, and managers must be disciplined over their negligence,” Chen said, adding that as acting general manager of CTS, she would request from the board of directors that she also be reprimanded.

The TV station did not mention what punitive actions were being taken, except to say that the biggest punishment was a major demerit.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel