Worse Experience in Television

[newslady_26]

Ok fess up, what were some of your worst television newsroom/live shot/mic on while peeing moments?

Here is mine,

I was a newbie at my first station and had just gotten back from a late breaking news story. I was totally on deadline and in my rush to get into the edit bays, I walked straight, and I mean straight into the glass door. I landed flat on my back with the entire newsroom laughing. The impact was so strong that my lipstick and makeup left an imprint for days.

Your turn!

[Signature on File]

Having a good looking reporter fall asleep on a trip to a story. She laid her head in my lap as we made the three hour trip early one morning. Only trouble...she drooled and made a big wet spot on my pants. When she woke up....she swore she didn't drool and blamed me.

[ISTHISTHINGON?]

It was actually college t.v., but it aired on the state ETV and in every dorm room. Countless students always watched....why you ask? Because of moments like my worst experience. I was Anchor that horrible day...and my first "float the pkg" situation. Except, the producer didn't tell me, I intro'd the pkg, it didn't roll, they came back to me....and BAM....I froze. Director should have gone to black at least, but instead, 23 seconds of me deer in headlights. I heard about it for quite some time afterwards.

[Rhuby Tuesday]

Originally posted by H R Puff&Stuff:
Having a good looking reporter fall asleep on a trip to a story. She laid her head in my lap as we made the three hour trip early one morning. Only trouble...she drooled and made a big wet spot on my pants. When she woke up....she swore she didn't drool and blamed me.Did she have a headache from getting poked in the ear? graemlins/eusa_doh.gif

[Marty McFly]

Um, shouldn't this be your 'worst' experience in television?

[the original buttongod]

Many a year ago, I was interning at KARD in Wichita (now KSNW). I was trailing the photog with the 3/4" recorder. I stepped on the coax, yanking the TK-76 off his shoulder. Here's an idea how long ago it was...the serial number on the camera was 003. Spent a lot of time cooling my heels in the newsroom after that.
graemlins/eusa_doh.gif

[Bureau Chief]

Ok my turn.
A few years ago, I got my introduction to studio camera work with zero minutes of training. It was air time and the camera guy had simply not bothered to come to work. I was the only one there that was free so I was elected.
So half way through a camera move during a VO, the camera dolly dropped and locked into place. IT WASNT BUDGING. With the director screaming in my ear, the engineer on his knees at the base of the camera, and time running out, the director tells me to take any shot of the anchor that I could get and he would work with it. Just as I manage to get a weird angle shot at a strange elevation, the engineer frees the locks up and shoves the camera hard, pushing me into the green screen area. The director seeing that the camera is moving, switches to the wx camera instead, hoping beyond hope that the wx guy is picking up on what is happening and can ad lib thru till sanity returns. Just as the shot goes to the wx guy, there I am falling backwards with camera in tow, right next to the wx guy and the national radar pic.
The wx guy, God bless him, never missed a beat...he immediately introduced me as the stations photog and storm chaser "helping out this morning". A true Vet.
Afterwards, even tho none of it was my fault, I thought for sure I was doomed. The ND told me "hey its live tv, S*** happens."
After that, no matter how bad it got or how screwed up a show was, it could never be as bad as that one.

[Bureau Chief]

Ok I have a second one but its not as good as my first story. We do a newsroom shot at the top of the show. The camera happens to be right next to the edit bays. As our reporter is just starting into his stand up, I am reaching for a stack of tapes on a top shelf about 5 feet from the reporter. Well the tapes start to fall to the floor in a cascade, making an ungodly noise. I try to stop them but the more I try, the more tapes head south, so I just frooze inplace until the tapes stopped falling or the live shot ends. The reporter COULD have been a complete butthead about it but as soon as the shot ends, he turns to me and asks if I need a hand. I checked the air tape, and yes, you could hear each and every one of those damned tapes hitting first, me in the head, then the shelf, then the floor. I took some real ribbing about that for weeks. Infact I was not allowed near that shelf anytime a newsroom shot was in progress for a long time.

[ January 13, 2007, 05:34 PM: Message edited by: Bureau Chief ]

[Randy Steinman]

Originally posted by H R Puff&Stuff:
Having a good looking reporter fall asleep on a trip to a story. She laid her head in my lap as we made the three hour trip early one morning.
HR, if this is the worst thing that ever happens during your career... you'll have a pretty good career.

[ January 13, 2007, 06:36 PM: Message edited by: Randy Steinman ]

[Roy Hobbs]

Dont get your honey where you make your money.

[Lazlo Toth]

Originally posted by Marty McFly:
Um, shouldn't this be your 'worst' experience in television?Not if you've had only two experiences.

[AutoTranz]

1. A dying switcher. Enough said.

2. Getting the dreaded "call" at 4:50AM (morning folks already know what I mean).

[ January 14, 2007, 10:31 AM: Message edited by: AutoTranz ]

[Rhuby Tuesday]

Originally posted by AutoTranz:
2. Getting the dreaded "call" at 4:50AM (morning folks already know what I mean).Or just not getting "the call" and waking up 12 hours later thinking you're on time for work.

[Sultanosurf]

Oh yeah, there's nothing like that stomach drop when you ease awake, look at the clock... and see you're supposed to be walking on set. I made it that time - no make-up or shave though, with serious bed-head.

But once doing half hour cut-ins, a boss took me outside to show the fire exit -- and the door locked shut behind us. Big problem. Studio was on the 32nd floor. Had to run down to the ground floor, run around the building, convince security to let me back in AND into the studio (Security pass left inside, natch.) Ju-u-ust slid in for my slot.

Absolute worst is getting shot at, but that happens to everybody.

[Lazlo Toth]

I remember in Bosnia we were doing a story on a woman going back to her burned out home for the first time after the Croatian army had driven her and her family out three years before.

The photog ran across the snow covered front yard to get the shot of her coming up the driveway. The woman spoke perfect English so we put a wireless mic on her. In his ear piece, the photog hears her say, "Aren't they afraid of the land mines?"

They cleared that yard three years later and there were three mines in the yard.

It wasn't the worst, but it could have been. Imagine trying to find a replacement photog on short notice in the middle of Bosnia.

[Mr T]

Originally posted by Bureau Chief:
Ok my turn.
A few years ago, I got my introduction to studio camera work with zero minutes of training. It was air time and the camera guy had simply not bothered to come to work. I was the only one there that was free so I was elected.
So half way through a camera move during a VO, the camera dolly dropped and locked into place. IT WASNT BUDGING. With the director screaming in my ear, the engineer on his knees at the base of the camera, and time running out, the director tells me to take any shot of the anchor that I could get and he would work with it. Just as I manage to get a weird angle shot at a strange elevation, the engineer frees the locks up and shoves the camera hard, pushing me into the green screen area. The director seeing that the camera is moving, switches to the wx camera instead, hoping beyond hope that the wx guy is picking up on what is happening and can ad lib thru till sanity returns. Just as the shot goes to the wx guy, there I am falling backwards with camera in tow, right next to the wx guy and the national radar pic.
The wx guy, God bless him, never missed a beat...he immediately introduced me as the stations photog and storm chaser "helping out this morning". A true Vet.
Afterwards, even tho none of it was my fault, I thought for sure I was doomed. The ND told me "hey its live tv, S*** happens."
After that, no matter how bad it got or how screwed up a show was, it could never be as bad as that one.That is the best story ever!

[CleanBreeze]

I was working as a grip on a Times Indoor Games at The Forum near L.A. in the early 80's.

I was pulling cable for a handheld at the third turn of the oval.

Steve Scott was racing someone and they were neck and neck (it finished in a dead heat). The cameraguy dropped the minicam to his hip. I glanced around and realized the ONLY way to get out of his shot as he panned was to dive into the floor-wooden boards. I literally ended up with a splinter in my face... But the shot looked GREAT as they rounded the turn. (I watched it later in the truck.)

A day or so later, I'm watching Wide World of Sports... Jim McKay introduces the highlight of the "rare dead heat..." He has my attention... Sure enough, it's OUR race... and, to my humiliation, they show the HIGH SHOT from the stands and there I am on NATIONAL TV diving into the floor.... I was HOPING none of my friends and classmates saw it... (I was still in college). About 50 phone calls later, I knew the answer...

[Steve Scott]

Originally posted by CleanBreeze:
Steve Scott was racing someone and they were neck and neck (it finished in a dead heat). If I recall correctly, I was declared winner of that race by .001 second. ;)

[Desert Rat]

dropped the end of game break and kept the post game break...when there was no post game show

That cost 12,000. With makegoods 24,000.

[ January 15, 2007, 06:11 PM: Message edited by: Desert Rat ]

[Ping-Pong Ball]

The worse one I ever saw happen was at a shop years ago that had the over-head projector teleprompter where you literally feed paper scripts through it. Anyway, right before the show, the prompter jammed.

A fill-in, who had never anchored before, was set to read the top story of the newscast. A report about a fatal car crash. As she started to read from her own paper copy, a fat engineer came running into the studio to fix the prompter.

The sight of this guy running caused the anchor to bust out laughing in the middle of the story.

The station made the fill-in buy the family flowers and she had to apology in person to the next of kin for her gut wrenching giggles.

[Poo(h)]

Originally posted by Ping-Pong Ball:
The worse one I ever saw happen was at a shop years ago that had the over-head projector teleprompter where you literally feed paper scripts through it. Anyway, right before the show, the prompter jammed.

A fill-in, who had never anchored before, was set to read the top story of the newscast. A report about a fatal car crash. As she started to read from her own paper copy, a fat engineer came running into the studio to fix the prompter.

The sight of this guy running caused the anchor to bust out laughing in the middle of the story.

The station made the fill-in buy the family flowers and she had to apology in person to the next of kin for her gut wrenching giggles.TOO good...

[ISTHISTHINGON?]

Station I used to work for had this chick waiting for her live shot. IFB must not have been working because while she was putting on makeup and ranting "Let me get ready for my whopping 15 seconds(not word for word)", the anchor had already tossed to her, and the whole ordeal was seen and heard. How does she handle it you ask? Gets busted ranting again in her tag. Longtime Anchors reaction was priceless....pissed to say the least. graemlins/face_banghead.gif

[Tripe Face]

I've had plenty of such moments. Killed entire break because of a timing mistake. That sucked even though the ND was rather cool about it. I overslept the day I was to produce the noon... got in at 9:30am... Same ND damn near fired me.

Had a homeless man break in to my station on a Saturday... since I was the weekend producer I had to call police, tell them what happened, sign the report etc. Then the guy broke in again a couple hours later(he didn't want to hurt anyone... I think he just wanted a tour). Cops finally found the basement door that wasn't quite closed.

I also had to play "deal with the cops when you are supposed to be writing the show" when a pissed off husband came into the station and beat the living sh!t out of the sports anchor with nothing but his bare hands. I guess he didn't notice the numerous baseball bats, hockey sticks and such scattered around the room. It would seem the Anchor was sleeping with the guy's wife. So not only did I and a reporter have to convince the Husband to leave (he wanted to calmly wait in the sports office until police showed up) I also had to clean up the blood on the floor to keep people from slipping. It was a LOT of blood. Like off the air for a month because his face was so *****ed up. Of course on days like that do yu think the anchors pitched in and did some extra writing? Hell no.

[On Air]

My WORST experience: I was the morning anchor and our show started at 5am. One morning, just as I finished up with my last script at 4:30am, the ENTIRE computer SYSTEM died. No rundowns, no scripts, no nothing. And something in the central computer was ON FIRE. The producer and I went dumpster diving for every thrown-out script from that morning and the night before. We made copies on our ancient copy machine that took forever to copy. We went off of a rundown that had been printed out earlier that morning.

Oh yeah, it meant NO PROMPTER for a solo anchor 2 hour morning show. We had no morning reporter, just one anchor and one weather guy.

I don't know what the director did, but he managed to get this train wreck on the air, and he did it well. The producer ran back and forth between the newsroom and the studio with newly-copied scripts. I read off of the cobbled-together hard copy and kept time for the producer, since she was running around like crazy.

God, I don't miss that morning.

[AutoTranz]

Originally posted by On Air:
My WORST experience: I was the morning anchor and our show started at 5am. One morning, just as I finished up with my last script at 4:30am, the ENTIRE computer SYSTEM died. No rundowns, no scripts, no nothing. And something in the central computer was ON FIRE. The producer and I went dumpster diving for every thrown-out script from that morning and the night before. We made copies on our ancient copy machine that took forever to copy. We went off of a rundown that had been printed out earlier that morning.

Oh yeah, it meant NO PROMPTER for a solo anchor 2 hour morning show. We had no morning reporter, just one anchor and one weather guy.

I don't know what the director did, but he managed to get this train wreck on the air, and he did it well. The producer ran back and forth between the newsroom and the studio with newly-copied scripts. I read off of the cobbled-together hard copy and kept time for the producer, since she was running around like crazy.

God, I don't miss that morning.I've had that happen before. Here's the SICK thing: the problem still exists (and will until Lord knows when, but I digress....)

For a while, the rundown/scripting system would crash somewhat frequently. Here's what's worse: nobody ever really prepared for a time like that. No backup PKG's downloaded just in case...no scripts saved from the night before just in case.

I almost want it to happen again...with the commercial spot server crashing at the same time (it's been known to give us the green weenie at times also).

Case in point? NEVER let dust develop on a house of cards. It's already a house of cards.

[Sir Dropham Pants]

"And this house just came tumbling down."
http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:fyUbvOV1uXw7kM:http://perso.orange.fr/csi-miami/CSI%2520MIAMI%2520PHOTOS/horatio%2520s4.jpg

EEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH

[sportzchick]

When I was new to playing/covering golf... i completely botched the name of a golfer who lived in the town where I worked. He wasn't a big name... or even a 2nd tier name...but I should have known how to say it.

The thing is... a guy from the Golf Channel must have been watching our channel that morning... as he corrected me the next time he saw me. graemlins/eusa_doh.gif

He did say that other than that to keep up the good work and he thought I had promise.

Stupid stupid stupid.

[trunky]

Here's a good one.
When Carter died, I accidentally put up a pic of Nixon in my online package.

[Mom]

Carter's dead?!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[trunky]

sry, meant Ford.

[The Mockingbird]

Originally posted by trunky:
Here's a good one.
When Carter died, I accidentally put up a pic of Nixon in my online package.What a coincidence, that was also my worst experience in television, when I accidentally triggered a wormhole in our newsrooms hurtling us both into the past.

Small universe, huh? It wouldn't have happened if I had had a real videographer running my video camera/hyperdimensional transport matrix, instead of this Video Journalist crap.

Damn Time-Warner-Hearst-Argyle-Sinclair-Nexstar-Gannett-Belo for being so cheap. Not to mention the relaxation on media mergers.

[Voice Within]

OK... Had to be the worst day of my career.

Sunday. Rural Midwest small market station. One Man Band reports for early morning Sunday duty two days after the biggest story to hit town - three kids died by being left in a hot car that was locked.

I get to the station - the only one in the building besides the master control engineer, to recieve a call from big network affiliate. "Can you help coordinate our chopper landing out there? We're sending our big name reporter out there to cover this story!" Now, there's a parking lot and a cornfield near the station, but I have no idea where to tell this idiot to land his big helicopter with his reporters even bigger ego. So I tell him to try the parking lot. And then I head out by myself to begin my own coverage of the event.

8 hours into my day, the clouds start to accumulate, and I catch wind that a nasty set of storms are coming in. So I call back to the station, and I am informed that they've called the whole weather department in as well as the news director, who by this time has told the idiot with the chopper, it's best to just send a SAT truck with the reporter.

After gathering my sound and video for a package, I need to find a photog to shoot my live shot for me at the hospital where the mother of these kids is at. No one is available, because they are all out chasing tornadoes, so my news director agrees to come with me to shoot the live shot.

I get in the car with him, he's the passenger. The storm has just broke, and so there are a lot of downed wires, trees, and slick roads. I come to a stop light, which is green, five minutes from the live shot, and ten minutes from the location. All of a sudden, the car in front of me stops for no reason, and I slam the brakes. The car doesn't stop, it skids, so I turn into the other lane. This causes the car behind me, towing a John Deere lawnmower, to crash into a stop light. I get out of the car along with my news director, and I say to him - "Stay in the Car - we need to make the hit - I'll take care of this!" So I check to make sure that everyone is all right, let them know that we have to leave and where we'll be, and then hurridly head out to the live shot.

Get to the live shot, do that, and then get everything back in the car. That's when the police officer greets us to take down the scenario for the traffic accident report. We do that, then head back for the station. Backing out of the parking spot with the news vehicle, I hit a concrete pylon behind us, smashing the hatch of the wagon and obliterating the window. Thank god, the old M2 camera is still OK.

My news director just shakes his head, and tells me to go. We pull out of the parking lot, and get on the road back to the station. At a stop light not far along, we both hear this tremendous squealing of tires, look behind us, and see a Buick come barrelling towards us. Smashes into the back of the news car, damages the camera and everything that wasn't damaged before. My news director holds his neck and starts complaining of neck pains. I'm angry as anything, and get out to see this young, beautiful Asian girl crying her eyes out that she just got her license and couldn't believe this. My news director just keeps shouting - "GET HER INFO! I've hurt my neck!" I feel like I'm in some sort of weirdly bad movie. So I get her info, and after a short while, we head to the station, my news director now trying not to move his head.

When we get to the station, there are three police cars, and a producer, frantically trying to tell me that they're here for me. Something about a hit and run. I go into meet the officers, and they inform me that they are going to charge me with a hit and run, for failing to stay at the accident scene the first time around. I was stunned, and apparently these dudes didn't get the memo that we talked to a cop near the scenes right after my live shot. After filing another report, and agreeing to report should this matter warrant my attention, I finally sit down, after working for fourteen hours straight this day, to have a coke and chat with my buddy the photog who was out chasing storms all day.

Then it happens. On the police scanner "Large Explosion... Power Plant... 260,000 without power..." I could not believe it... and could still not believe that my news director looked right at me, and said - you have to go. It's 9:00PM at this point. The news is at 10PM. The explosion is at least 45 - 55 minutes away. 45 speeding in a news vehicle. 55 for a live truck. And I'm running on empty.

But I go. So does photog. We get there, four minutes before the show. With no IFB, with no monitor, I'm getting info from the official on scene who tells me what I need for the shot. That's when I hear it. "HEY - PICK UP YOUR MIKE!!!!! YOUR ON!!!!!!" I look over at the photog, the source of the yelling, and realize he's pointed at me, the mic is hot, and I'm on the air.

And I didn't miss a beat... other than the seven seconds of awkwardness while I was realizing what was going on and then picking up the mic.

Craziest day of my life... and certainly a blooper I'll keep forever. Me and that photog amazingly met up several years later half way around the world in Europe and had a great many laughs about that day.

Only in news.

[trunky]

daaamn. great story, thanks.