Tokyo Olympics: South Korean TV network apologizes for opening ceremony images

Tokyo Olympics officially underway (NCD)

By Bob D'Angelo, Cox Media Group National Content Desk

TOYKO — A South Korean television network apologized on Saturday for using inappropriate images and captions to describe participating countries during the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Games.

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As Olympic delegations marched in Japan National Stadium, MBC used split-screen images for the countries, Japan Today reported.

The network used images of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster for Ukraine, “an unstable political situation due to the assassination of its president,” for Haiti, salmon for Norway, pizza for Italy and a promotional bitcoin poster for El Salvador when each nation entered the stadium, Reuters reported.

MBC also referred to the Marshall Islands as “once a nuclear test site for the United States,” and Syria as the country that has “a civil war going on for 10 years,” according to Reuters.

The broadcaster issued an apology after the ceremony, saying that “inappropriate images and captions were used to introduce some countries.”

“We apologize to those countries including Ukraine and our viewers,” the network said in its statement.

©2021 Cox Media Group

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