Sue Simmons’ f-bomb earlier this month was posted on YouTube about 10 minutes after it occurred.
That speed might have been a record-breaker but it is inevitable today that TV news “bloopers” which once would have been forgotten now receive the gift of eternal life on YouTube.com, providing entertainment for you and me.
“We’ll look for you on YouTube there, Jane!” said Fox News anchor Shepard Smith to colleague Jane Skinner when she mistakenly substituted a forbidden four-letter word referring to a man’s anatomy for the word “cop.”
Shep ought to know: He’s on YouTube for his own off-color slip of the tongue when introducing a story about Jennifer Lopez (search: “Shepard Smith” and “Jennifer Lopez”).
While it can be hilarious to hear news types blurt out dirty words, for my money the best bloopers on YouTube are the ones that arise from badly written copy, conversational slipups, or errors in identification.
Here’s an example from an out-of-town Fox station (search “embarrassing news blooper”) that’s one of my favorites.
Anchorman to anchorwoman, introducing a segment on corporal punishment: “Well, I’m sure you needed it, Annie, did you get many spankings as a kid?”
And she answers, “As a kid? No,” making it seem as if she gets them now.
Here’s another one in which an anchorman should have paused for a breath or two between telling his viewers that their usual anchor had the night off and then reading the evening’s top story (search “insane news man”).
Instead, here’s what he said: “Good evening, I’m Ken Bastida. Dana is off tonight [no pause] he was murdered and then set on fire while celebrating his birthday . . .”
The victim, of course, was not “Dana,” but some other poor soul.
Speaking of poor souls, one clip on YouTube contains a serious mislabeling of an out-of-town weatherman (search: “worst blooper ever”) who was oblivious to fact that the words appearing on screen during his forecast were not his name, but the words “Child molester.”
TV news has been around for something like 60 years. The plentiful clips of TV news mistakes on YouTube.com indicate the industry still needs a little more time to get the hang of it.
