Longtime WNBC-TV local channel 4 news anchor woman Sue Simmons said, on air, "a word that many people find offensive. It was a mistake I made and I’m truly sorry."
Simmons surely fucked up this time when she had a momentary fit of honest expression, something which is so very often a no-no in the mainstream media.
Simmons was taping a news promo when she had a slip of the tongue. When the images being matched to her spoken words suddenly shifted from that related to rising food prices to that of a passenger falling overboard from a cruise ship, Simmons reacted by saying, "What the fuck are you doing?"
A long (nearly ten second) silence then fell into place.
The public does not seem overly shocked, and are barely offended, by Simmons’ gaffe, a fact which some might take to mean our culture and with it our sensibilities are sinking as low as Simmons’ stomach likely did during that near-ten-seconds of silence.
At the ‘WNBC New York An Apology’ forum on the Topix website, one standout commentary made by one post-maker going by the name "hee-hee" said: "I live in Louisiana and saw the apology live on the newscast. I had to rewind my DVR to see what she was apologizing for…and it was a shocker! I worked in TV news for nine years and nothing like that ever happened. Very unprofessional… and yet, very awesome."
Simmons’ mic-on slip of the tongue (if only her mic had been switched off first, it wouldn’t have been a slip of the tongue at all) is hauntingly reminiscent of a George W. Bush mic-on gaffe from the summer of 2006.
Readers may recall that "W" was in St. Petersburg for the Group of Eight summit and was talking to England’s Tony Blair about his disgust with the U.N.’s dovish stance on the Hezbollah rocket attacks against Israel.
In a moment of candor in which the U.S. President did not realize that a live microphone was in close proximity, he was clearly heard to say: "See the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it’s over."