Flirtatious: "Will you look at those big cow eyes?"
Real Mood: Self Effacing
Prediction: There will be a culture clash somewhere today.
I remember hearing a story while working in Kansas about a hunter from New Orleans shooting a farmer's prize bull. He shoots it, he says, 'cause he thinks it's a rabbit. Uh, huh!
I remember pitching a story in a community south of here where there was a horse "tack store," right next door to a "health food" restaurant. One of them went out of business before I got the go ahead. I can't remember which one. I was expecting to witness some wonderful communication clashes.
Point is that as populations explode, and the line between urban and rural gets harder to define, we are all going to suffer from "hoof and mouth" disease (aka sticking one's foot into one's mouth).
So a few postings ago I mention the stock show is in town. What that means to local TV reporters is they are doing a lot of liveshots around livestock. This is not familiar territory. Well this was bound to happen, and I'm glad I was in front of the "tube" to catch it. (Are there any tubes left inside a TV set?}
The reporter is in front of a pen of Longhorn cattle. He's getting ready to chat with the cowperson in charge of the odd looking cattle. He says, "those are quite some ANTLERS they've got."
Oh, he catches his mistake. And there's not an honest reporter or anchor on the planet that hasn't blurted out a "faux pas" of equal ignorance.
I share some of my own slips of brain and tongue with some of my classes. But for sake of the PG 13 rating I claim, I'll leave them in the classroom for now.
Still it is nostalgic, and I'm sorry to say, amusing to see the cowperson's jaw drop on TV. He is speechless and just staring at the reporter. It brings back memories of how it feels to screw up on the air and know it as you do it. Oh, what a sinking sensation!
It also reminds me of some of the cardinal guidelines of announcing live on air.
Do not correct yourself! Do not apologize!
A viewer is thinking, "Did he say antlers? Nah, that's not possible."
And right about then you, with your face bright red, say, "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say Antlers."
And then that viewer says, "My God! He did say Antlers. How stupid?"
In truth the only thing close to stupid he did was draw attention to his error. Now he'll forever be known as the guy who doesn't know his antler from his horn. There are, of course, far worse reputations one might attain.
Parting thought? None of us should define ourselves, or let others define us, by the stupid little things we do along the way. None of us are pure. None of us are immune. And if anyone ever comes up with an antidote for the disease? What a boring World we would be living in.
3 comments:
Wow! And there I was, thinking that only cars had horns!
As I study television and film more and more I think the best and funniest moments come from how people act naturally. Even if they do say something really retarded. Sometimes when I get VO's, I tape people when they don't know the camera is rolling.
Ha Ha, that has got to be one of they most embarrasing feelings to goof like that on live television. But you do have a point, never apologize for a mistake, just keep going. If you point out your own stupidity it just makes the whole situation even worse. There's a lesson in this story, don't open your mouth until you are sure you know what you are talking about...
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