An honest mistake!

IT WAS AN HONEST MISTAKE, BUT IT COST HER THE JOB. In September 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in India for his first state visit to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The visit was a major diplomatic event with China planning to invest nearly $21 billion in various Indian sectors. During a late-night broadcast on Doordarshan, India's state-run television network, a newsreader made an unfortunate error. She confused Xi's name (pronounced "shee") with the Roman numeral XI, which stands for eleven. She called him "Eleven Jinping" on live television. The mistake happened repeatedly during the broadcast. By the next day, the CEO of Prasar Bharti (Doordarshan's parent organization) confirmed the newsreader had been fired. "It's true, we have sacked the concerned newsreader," CEO Jawahar Sircar told Quartz. "We are putting systems in place to make sure such things don't happen in future." The newsreader was a casual contract worker hired to read late-night bulletins, since regular staff didn't want to work those hours. Casual newsreaders weren't on Doordarshan's official payroll. The mistake highlighted a common issue in Indian media. Reports frequently get conventions on East Asian names wrong, referring to leaders by their given names instead of family names (like writing "Mr. Jinping" instead of "Mr. Xi"). The incident became international news and even spawned parody social media accounts. For one newsreader working the graveyard shift, a pronunciation error during a high-profile state visit ended her contract immediately.