# Stupidest thing you've heard a newscaster say? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 28, 2008, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-thing-youve-heard-a-newscaster-say/457981 "2008-07-28T21:27:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-thing-youve-heard-a-newscaster-say/457981/21 "2008-07-29T05:10:33Z")
Years ago on Montgomery, AL WSFA (NBC affiliate), a line that made me feel bad for laughing. Phrasing approximate but the point accurate. > [@](#): > > “A house fire earlier today claimed the life of a senior citizen. Mrs. Ethel Jackson, an 89 year old Montgomery native, suffered 3rd degree burns and smoke inhalation from the fire that started in the kitchen and destroyed most of her home at 1234 Whatever Street.” cut to film footage of paramedics saying “We were too late to save her” and firemen saying “We were able to stop the fire from spreading to neighbor’s homes but the house is a total loss” and neighbors saying “She was such a good woman why did this have to happen”, then return to newscaster who says (and you could damned near hear everybody in the viewing area spew Coke at the same time) > [@](#): > > “Investigators state that Mrs. Jackson was cooking over an open flame …” ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-thing-youve-heard-a-newscaster-say/457981/22 "2008-07-29T05:19:21Z")
Another from Montgomery- requires that you know there’s a big flea market in the countryside above Montgomery in a community called Santuck (used to be called _Sand Tuck_ and some still pronounce it that way). On first weekends in summer it’s especially a really big deal; it’s literally just a pasture with some sheds, but dealers come from hundreds of miles away and they sell everything from beanie babies to junk to $2,000 puppies and cars, etc.. A local and popular male newscaster announced > [@](#): > > "And don’t forget that tomorrow is the opening of the Sandfuck Tea Market… I mean the Sandfuck Tea Market… SAN- TUCK - FLEA- MAR- KET… " sound of laughter throughout the studio, host turning beet red, trying to control himself, eyes closed… > [@](#): > > TOMORROW IS THE FLEA MARKET… AT… SANTUCK… where I hope to see you since I’ll probably be leaving Montgomery after this broadcast… Good night and have a good weekend… To the best of my knowledge he got in no trouble. It was clearly an honest mistake and he had years of experience, but I’m guessing he got ribbed over that for weeks. ---
**Author:** ![Cyberhwk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7993a0/32.png) [@Cyberhwk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyberhwk)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-thing-youve-heard-a-newscaster-say/457981/23 "2008-07-29T06:24:21Z")
“Terrorist fist jab.” ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-thing-youve-heard-a-newscaster-say/457981/24 "2008-07-29T07:42:43Z")
[QUOTE=jsc1953] On a San Francisco station many years ago, local anchor was reading off the teleprompter about satellite images coming back from Jupiter’s moon Io. Except he pronounced it “Ten”. [/QUOTE] I had a physics prof who pronounced it “eye zero”. A favorite was the time I heard a sportscaster, narrating highlights, say that a player “injured his ankle on that play. It was later changed to a knee.” ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-thing-youve-heard-a-newscaster-say/457981/25 "2008-07-29T08:01:22Z")
Do Nancy Grace and Glenn Beck count as newscasters, incidentally? Because if they do then that really widens the playing field. An extremely stupid headline that had some spoken versions as well was [Shooting victim apologizes to Cheney](http://www.feedsfarm.com/article/2aad25e4bcfceff08eb7245d262a512f82a32fe2.html). ---
**Author:** ![maggenpye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecc23a/32.png) [@maggenpye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maggenpye)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-thing-youve-heard-a-newscaster-say/457981/26 "2008-07-29T10:28:01Z")
We had a sportscaster commenting on a fight that had broken out between some players on the sidelines during a rugby game; “Now there’s no need for punching each other in the head, they should keep that sort of thing on the field, where … it … belongs.” You could see his internal censor kicking in just a second too late. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-thing-youve-heard-a-newscaster-say/457981/27 "2008-07-29T12:57:20Z")
When a plane crashed in Queens NYC two months after 9/11, a BBC newscaster said something about a disaster “on the other side of the Hudson River.” The other side of the Hudson is New Jersey. The plane crash was near the East River. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-thing-youve-heard-a-newscaster-say/457981/28 "2008-07-29T14:23:52Z")
I remember watching a baseball game, broadcast from the States, a few years back where the announcer said that a certain player didn’t speak “Mexican.” Or how about a weather announcer stating that tomorrow would be twice as warm as today. (I understood that he meant it would be, for example, 20 degrees C instead of 10 degrees C, but that’s not really twice as warm now, is it?) ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-thing-youve-heard-a-newscaster-say/457981/29 "2008-07-29T14:34:11Z")
[QUOTE=Annie-Xmas] When a plane crashed in Queens NYC two months after 9/11, a BBC newscaster said something about a disaster “on the other side of the Hudson River.” The other side of the Hudson is New Jersey. The plane crash was near the East River. [/QUOTE] Actually it was way the hell out in the Rockaways, near the Sound. Not very close to either river. This isn’t quite a stupid thing that a newscaster said, but I was once watching the local weather report on WNBC. As they went to the full-screen forecast view live on the air, a Windows dialog popped up on the screen informing the entire viewing audience that their license had expired and this dialog would appear every fifteen minutes until it was renewed. Some diligent technician dutifully clicked “OK” before the end of the forecast. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-thing-youve-heard-a-newscaster-say/457981/30 "2008-07-29T14:49:30Z")
I remember reacting strongly to a Chicago anchor - Ron Magers - on the day of Chernobyl, asking **“Is there going to BE a tomorrow?”** That’s probably right around when I stopped watching the local news. ---
**Author:** ![slaphead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@slaphead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slaphead)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-thing-youve-heard-a-newscaster-say/457981/31 "2008-07-29T14:57:38Z")
[QUOTE=commasense] Bob Varsha, who is otherwise a very good sports announcer, once said as a Formula One race was about to start, that “the drivers have one foot on the gas, one foot on the brake, and one foot on the clutch.” [/QUOTE] Well, if you’re going to allow silly sports commentary, I think you’re going to have to set up a whole new category just for the BBC and their [legendary commentators](http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A6564341). ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-thing-youve-heard-a-newscaster-say/457981/32 "2008-07-29T15:09:06Z")
Anything said by local ABC news affiliate reporter Don Germaise. There’s too many to pick one example, everything has to be _dramatic_. As he finishes his teasers for his stories, he pauses and hunches down a little and steps toward the camera, usually gesturing toward the camera with his hand as he finishes his line. This is also the guy who can’t pass up the phrase “hunker down” during hurricanes. I once tried to count how many times he used the phrase in one report and lost count after about 20 but he was still going. If you play drinking games during hurricanes and drink every time you hear that phrase that man could kill you. He is always going out in hurricanes, if we don’t have one in our area he travels to where ever it is making landfall. I figure it’s a just matter of time before he gets hit with some flying debris. It will be ironic because he will have failed to hunker down. This doesn’t really count but I was watching Fox News (not by choice) at the gym, since they play music all the TV’s are set to closed captioning and the result was hilarious. The phrases “people of that elk” and “Hurricane Dali”, in particular, stood out. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-thing-youve-heard-a-newscaster-say/457981/33 "2008-07-29T15:10:43Z")
On 9/11 I did hear several newscasters say “President Clinton.” But considering the circumstances, I can hardly blame them. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-thing-youve-heard-a-newscaster-say/457981/34 "2008-07-29T15:14:14Z")
“Finally, an end to the heat wave. Story at ten on Fox 25 Evening News.” It was in the low 80s that day. It was in the 60s the day before. Every day for 5 months before that was fucking FREEZING. “If he thinks he’s going to get off on an insanity plea, he’s crazy!” -Nancy Grace ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-thing-youve-heard-a-newscaster-say/457981/35 "2008-07-29T16:02:03Z")
[Still my favorite news blooper of all time](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHCNJb_GXPQ). (NSFW language) ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-thing-youve-heard-a-newscaster-say/457981/36 "2008-07-29T16:43:32Z")
“We didn’t have hurricane force winds, we had a _hurricane_, right here in North Carolina!” – Said by one of the ladies on WTVD (Channel 11) after Hurricane Fran. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-thing-youve-heard-a-newscaster-say/457981/37 "2008-07-29T17:31:11Z")
Maybe not so much stupid as could have done a little bit of fact-checking, but I remember one morning back when Bob Edwards was still doing Morning Edition on NPR, I woke up to hear him rattling off the birthdays at the top of the hour, including “Reggae musician Peter Tosh, who turns (I forget what age he said) today.” The only problem being that Peter Tosh had been dead for about ten years. ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-thing-youve-heard-a-newscaster-say/457981/38 "2008-07-29T18:02:05Z")
During an NPR news talk show a few years ago, the host kept calling MI5, “Em-Fifteen”. Worse yet, she was interviewing a British expert on the British intelligence services. He was too polite apparently to point out her mistake, and instead he just used the correct name. Finally, half-way through the show, the penny must have dropped in her brain. She switched over to “Em-Eye-Five” without any further comment. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-thing-youve-heard-a-newscaster-say/457981/39 "2008-07-29T18:15:40Z")
My favorite was 7-8 years back on Channel 11 in NY. The female reporter just got done with some dumb puff piece on an airline, and briefly recounted her initiation into the “Mile High Club” with a male steward. … “are we still on the air?” Yes, you’re still on the air. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-thing-youve-heard-a-newscaster-say/457981/40 "2008-07-29T18:34:55Z")
So I’m working at home today with the TV on in the other room. The weather report comes on, and the weather guy says it’s sunny in Cleveland, and “ironically, partly sunny in Akron.” ? What the hell is ironic about it being partly sunny in Akron? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-thing-youve-heard-a-newscaster-say/457981.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-thing-youve-heard-a-newscaster-say/457981.md?page=3)