SINGAPORE: At the live broadcast of the 47th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit on Sunday (Oct 26), a commentator from Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM) mistakenly identified Prime Minister Lawrence Wong as Lee Hsien Loong, whom he succeeded in May 2024.
However, this was not RTM’s only mistake during the ASEAN summit. The same commentator said that the Prime Minister of Thailand was Srettha Thavisin. Earlier that day, RTM said in a statement that the name of the President of Indonesia is Joko Widodo.
For the record, Srettha Thavisin was dismissed from his position in August 2024, and the current Thai Prime Minister is Anutin Charnvirakul. As for Indonesia, its President is Prabowo Subianto, who had served as Defence Minister under Joko Widodo, whose second presidential term ended last year.
RTM has since apologised for the mistakes made last Sunday.
“RTM views this matter seriously and appropriate action has been taken,” the broadcaster said in a statement, adding that it will “continue to increase editorial control and fact-checking to ensure all information that is conveyed is accurate and has integrity.”
On Tuesday (Oct 28), Malay Mail reported that RTM Director-General Datuk Suhaimi Sulaiman had met with officials from Singapore and Indonesia the day before to provide an official explanation and apology.
He spoke to Singapore’s High Commissioner to Malaysia, Vanu Gopala Menon, as well as to representatives from the Indonesian delegation.
The apology was accepted, with both parties understanding that the misidentifications had been unintentional.
“We have conveyed an official apology, and they accepted it with full understanding. It was an unintentional mistake, and we deeply regret it. The High Commissioner of Singapore also appreciated our sincerity and emphasised that Malaysia-Singapore relations remain close and strongly bonded,” he said.
Commenters online, however, had quite a bit to say about the incident.
“Getting your immediate neighbour’s names wrong… Great going, Malaysia,” one wrote.
“Malaysia, those are your direct neighbours,” echoed another.
“I read stuff that I WROTE at least twice before submitting it to avoid making embarrassing mistakes. Whoever made this mistake clearly didn’t read through their ‘work’ even one time. I am literally a nobody. Whoever screwed this up needs to lose their job,” chimed in a third.
Others, however, could not help but have some fun.
“One is a mistake. Two is a coincidence. Three is a pattern … of using AI…” a Reddit user joked.
“Using AI is one thing. But this suggests that they just Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V from ChatGPT without even a second glance,” replied another.
“When your broadcast relies on the boss’s memory. I mean LHL has been PM for quite some time (through six Malaysian PMs, in fact). It’s like people saying ‘God save the Queen’ after King Charles took over,” a commenter wrote. /TISG
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