Lovely little broadcast faux pas

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,195493,00.html

This prompted me to think there may be some broadcast stories worth telling from forum members and trawlers.

That reminds me .. can someone pleeeeeeeeeeze tell someone at Fox News that we're sick of seeing the weather every 5 minutes on Fox News on satellite in the UK! We heard your ads were bad but'll put up with them I promise  

we're sick of seeing the weather every 5 minutes on Fox News on satellite in the UK!

Well, here, I'm tired of seeing all the legal-in-depth National Enquirer-style murder and other sordid stories...  Actually, I go somewhere else at that point.  FOX doesn't need to do that... ad nauseum.

I love Fox News's freshness, the little live screw-ups etc...reminds me of CNN in the early days .. CNN looks like a polished documentary now (boring, lost their edge) .. but Fox .. the bl**dy weather every 5 minutes, come on now!!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,195493,00.html

This prompted me to think there may be some broadcast stories worth telling from forum members and trawlers.

Apparently some of the facts in this story are incorrect, so in some ways the text media aren't any better.  Yes, it's true that someone else was interviewed in place of the expert, but the story I've now heard is that the person interviewed was someone coming in for a job interview.

The BBC itself has played a clip of the interview on its Newsnight programme, and interviewed the guy on air elsewhere. Actually he and the real interviewee were both called Guy.

He appears to be from the Congo, and to have been there to be interviewed for a job in IT support. He hasn't yet heard if he got the job.

He did cope pretty well and seemed to be at least as competent as the presenter. He looked jolly, cheerful and friendly, and I'm sure will be able to say "Have you switched it on?" with the best of them if he gets the job.

Meanwhile we can expect another "star" to rise from the shambles that is broadcasting in the UK nowadays.

Apparently some of the facts in this story are incorrect, so in some ways the text media aren't any better.  Yes, it's true that someone else was interviewed in place of the expert, but the story I've now heard is that the person interviewed was someone coming in for a job interview.

Which seems to put the story as migrating into the "urban folklore" category -- details changing to suit the storyteller.

BBC Radio 4 has been turning this into its own news event - sick. I've heard another interview with Guy now (intentional!), and it is pretty much as Cal has said - he came for a job interview, and was waiting in the same area as somebody else called Guy (Kewney, the 'expert'), and he simply reacted quite correctly when somebody shouted 'Guy'... and the rest is as told. I don't believe he got the job, incidentally, although there were interruptions here when they got around to that bit, so that's not definite.

I've just discovered that SWMBO watched the interview go out live. Apparently he started off by saying 'Actually I'm not an expert, but...' and went on to say something perfectly reasonable as far as she was concerned. She did think his opening comment was a little strange, perhaps, but thought no more of it - he was convincing enough, apparently.

I've also just remembered that in the Radio 4 interview, he said that he did get a little suspicious when they tried to put makeup on him - for a job interview!

I've been amused by a statement I heard in a report on National Public Radio (in the US) about converting waste straw and grasses into ethanol.   I guess technically and gramatically it's correct, but to my ear it's much too easy to visualize a meadow of cows blowing up into big puffs of popcorn!