Live TV reporters have a lot of pressure on them at all times. When reporters go live, they have one shot to get their lines right and to not make any mistakes. Although this is the expected outcome, it doesn’t always work out this way. Reporters sometimes make mistakes, and when they do, to their misfortune, it is not only a mistake that can’t be undone, but it is caught on camera for viewers to laugh at and constantly replay for amusement. Recently, one of these mistakes happened while an anchor was live on TV. This unfortunate but not so uncommon error has occurred to an Australian-American TV news anchor, Savannah Guthrie. Savannah is one of the hosts of NBC’s Today Show and has been in this position since 2012. Guthrie has many fans that watch her consistently and is considered to be quite entertaining and a good, professional, broadcaster. She hasn’t had many mistakes within her career until a recent episode where she accidentally let the “s-word” slip. To her misfortune, this is a mistake that couldn’t have been corrected since the moment it occurred.
As soon as Guthrie made this mistake, the person who was recording the live broadcast turned off her microphone and cut to a commercial shortly to distract from the shocking mishap. Meanwhile, viewers of the show turned to the internet and began posting about Savannah’s mistake online. Although some people were making a joke out of the situation, some were empathetic to her situation and took the mistake in a humorous way. Some viewers even said that her mistake made them like her more. There was some speculation that there was another swear word uttered by the anchor after the first one, but that the second one was blocked out by the news station. If this is true, then the station had done a good job of covering up a blunder, since two mistakes are certainly worse than just one. Commentators online mentioned this, drawing further criticism and conversation around the TV controversy. Some people who may not have noticed this detail were now commenting on the fact that Guthrie had messed up not just once, but twice!
Following the on-air mistake, Guthrie decided to make a public apology online. She apologized on Twitter for swearing during the broadcast and even poked a joke at herself saying that she didn’t know that her microphone was on. Tweeting an apology to the public may have been a good strategy to quell the drama since her tactic seemed to work with the viewers online. People began to respond and post about her apology, and the public opinion began to die down. It is a good thing that she owned up to this blunder, although her managers may have not appreciated it happening in the first place. Situations like this happen more often than some people might realize, and it is unfortunately often the reality of a TV broadcast that goes live. All that broadcasters can do when they are on air is try their best and put their best foot forward, although mistakes do happen sometimes. The way that Savannah Guthrie approached this problem was fair, respectable, and honest, which is all that an audience could ask of someone who steps out of the character they are paid to portray.
