The world of live television is one of those places where anything can happen at any time and sometimes people will make mistakes.
I have seen enough live broadcasts to know that even the most professional of newscasters will flub something and it will be visible because their job, at least on the local anchor level, is to be pretty much right all of the time.
People make mistakes and there is nearly nothing that anyone can do about it. If someone makes an honest mistake or an honest slip of the tongue than that person should be allowed to say sorry and try to make things right as far as anyone is concerned.
No career should be shot down totally because of one mistake. However, it seems that in the ultra PC culture that we live in now that folks have to walk on eggshells so much that by the end of the line the heat from people’s bodies are producing fully cooked omelets.
Via Western Journal:
Rochester, New York, Mayor Lovely Warren called for a local news station to fire its chief meteorologist because she claimed he used a racial slur during a broadcast, according to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.
The station, WHEC-TV, dismissed forecaster Jeremy Kappell one day later.
Kappell was speaking on the air Friday when he scrambled the name of the city’s Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park, seemingly combining “King” and “Junior” so that it sounded as if he said “Martin Luther Coon King Jr. Park.”
Warren, however, didn’t believe it was a slip of the tongue.
According to the Democrat and Chronicle, the mayor and City Council President Loretta Scott demanded Kappell’s removal Sunday evening, saying in a joint statement, “It is beyond unacceptable that this occurred.”
“There must be real consequences for the news personality involved and also for the management team that failed to immediately apologize and address the slur,” they said. “The individual responsible for the slur should no longer be employed at Channel 10.”
Warren and Scott are black, while Kappell is white.
Richard A. Reingold, vice president and general manager of WHEC, announced the meteorologist’s departure in a statement Monday.
“As a result of that broadcast, meteorologist Jeremy Kappell is no longer with News10NBC,” Reingold said. “We believe strongly in holding our reporters and anchors to the highest standard.”