Two Examples of an Important TV Truth: Never Lose it on a TV News Set
I don't know why experienced TV journalists never learn this lesson. But the current online climate makes it plain: famous anchors lose their tempers on set at their own peril.
Industry veterans know that production staffers, who often earn many times less the salaries of the highly-paid, high-strung primadonnas losing it publicly, love to secretly roll tape when a famous face is having a tantrum. Rest assured that the embarrassing video will surface later, plunked online by someone who got a bootleg tape from a friend of a friend and can't wait to share it with cyberspace.
Here is Bill O'Reilly blowing his top when he was an anchor on Inside Edition, apparently upset that someone didn't write a tagline capping the end of the show, just before proving that he didn't really need the script, anyway.
Here's the F-word heard around cyberspace -- New York anchor Sue Simmons loosing the F-word at the end of a promo she thought was being taped, but was actually airing live.


The Feed is a blog on TV, media and modern life by St. Petersburg Times TV/media critic Eric Deggans. Possibly the most critical guy at the Times, he has served as music, media and TV critic at various times over 10 years.
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dude -- that jacket was SMOKIN'!
Posted by: Eric Deggans | May 15, 2008 at 12:15 AM
Ha, a certain TV critic from Vancouver send that to me earlier, I love it. What a horse's patoot. Bill O'Really?
BTW, never knew that jacket meant so much to you at your birthday party. I would've worn it more often :-)
Chase
Posted by: Chase | May 14, 2008 at 09:08 PM
Oh dear, this is why we need God in our classrooms again.
Posted by: Steven Tamayo | May 14, 2008 at 07:35 PM