Notice: this contains content that is NSFW.
On St. Patricks’s Day weekend, local ABC affiliate WJLA-TV was reporting on Arlington residents drinking at local pubs. Ironically, right as news anchor Kimberly Suiters asked reporter Jeff Goldberg about residents keeping their clothes on, a flasher walks in frame of the camera. Goldberg barely reacted and continued with the story.
Later, both Suiters and Goldberg referenced the incident on Twitter, however the tweets have since been deleted.
In the United States the majority of Americans own a DVR. In the context of this story, a Washingtonian could have “rewound” the broadcast to watch over the clip again. In my opinion, this makes content advisories on live TV all that more important. Mistakes in live TV can be re-uploaded online for the entire world to see not just the local audience. This means that one small flub or mistake could be seen by millions of people worldwide instead of the thousands locally. This could be damaging to an anchor or TV station’s credibility.
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