Newsreader praised for how she handled accidentally talking live on air without realising
Dominic Smithers
Featured Image Credit: ABC
Live television is littered with potential pitfalls presenters must navigate to avoid looking like a fool.
But when you do trip up, just like Rocky once said, it's about how you get back up and move forward. Like this:
A few years back, Erin Conrad was working for Texoma's KTEN in Dennison, Texas. And during one broadcast, she got seriously caught out while chatting to her co-host.
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In a clip that has become somewhat iconic, Conrad can be seen staring off into the distance, with her colleague standing to her left.
At first, nothing seems to off, until she blurts out a bizarre sentence, clearly unaware that the cameras are still rolling and they're live.
"I so pale," Conrad says. Confused, the other presenter nudges her arm, telling her: "You're on."
Now, while most people would probably crumble with sheer embarrassment at having come out with such an odd phrase while live to millions, Conrad didn't.
Instead, she handled it like a true professional, locking her eyes straight back onto the auto-cue and carrying on with the broadcast as if nothing had happened.
And her performance after the outburst led to viewers praising Conrad for managing to pull it back from the brink.
Writing online, one person said: "She should have won an Oscar going from her winning personality to her top notch professionalism. She can do it all."
Another commented: "She played that off well IMO. Looked dead at the camera, put her game face on and started reading teleprompter like it didn’t happen."
Praising the pair of them, a third put: "Such troopers, both of them. Handled it like a pro, but I can just imagine red sweater's absolute struggle during her closing line to keep it together.
"That giggle at the end slipped past her control and was followed by silent laughing."
While someone else added: "That dead pan delivery is what did it for me, she straight ignored anything that happened and just started the program."
But like I said at the start, live broadcasts are treacherous, and Conrad isn't the first to trip up.
Just take Barbie Bassett, for example, who was pulled off air after she quoted Snoop Dogg during a NBC's WLBT 3 news broadcast earlier this year.
Bassett and her colleagues Wilson Stribling and Patrick Ellis had been discussing Snoop Dogg's Cali wine when the awkward moment unfolded live on air.
"Before we know it she [Bassett] would have a Snoop Dogg tattoo on her shoulder," joked Stribling.
Without missing a beat, Bassett nodded back at Stribling and replied: "Fo shizzle, my nizzle."
Although the sentiment behind the quote is relatively harmless, Bassett's use of the phrase was a little controversial, given that 'nizzle' is a slang rhyming term for the N-word.