My True Save Story

My story starts with the TV on and an old friend on it. He was anchoring the news. No names. I want to protect the innocent.

I saw it immediately. The collar on his suit coat was turned up. It’s happened to all of us. On TV it stands out.

Normally this kind of thing is caught by the floor director or camera operator. Those jobs don’t exist at most stations anymore.

The second line of defense are the folks in the control room–the producer and director.

Maybe they were busy? Maybe they don’t realize this is their job too? Whatever the reason, silence.

I tweeted my friend.

Fix suit collar. Is turned up.

A few minutes later I got a reply, but not from my friend. A co-worker of his follows my Twitter account. She was working just off set.

I went and fixed it for him

Yes she had! Anyone tuning in after the first few minutes missed this wardrobe malfunction.

To cover all our tracks, I’m erasing my tweets. Stuff happens. I don’t want to embarrass anyone.

It’s my good deed for the day for one of the nicest guys I know.

10 thoughts on “My True Save Story”

  1. Not sure that I ‘get’ deleting the tweets from Twitter, but posting them on the blog, and the blog on FB. But, it was a nice thing to do.

  2. Geoff – You saved a nice guy. I saved a snake today (literally). It had gotten caught up in some bird netting in my garden from last year and was pretty well stuck. It took me about 20 minutes to cut it free – I didn’t want it to go away with any net still on it (which would have strangled it), so I had to hold its head to keep it from slithering away while I cut off the last pieces. It didn’t seem too appreciative, but it never tried to bite me. So that was a good deed that actually went unpunished!

    1. Rick, I’ve got to say, that’s one lucky snake! How many others of us would have been able to do that for it?? Like I say, one lucky snake! Someday, you’ll be rewarded….

  3. “Normally this kind of thing is caught by the floor director or camera operator. Those jobs don’t exist at most stations anymore.”

    Yeah. I work at one of the lucky ones that not only still has a guy on the floor, but still has a dedicated camera operator (running robotic cameras, but still, an operator.)

    “The second line of defense are the folks in the control room–the producer and director.”

    Now, to be fair, I don’t know what station this is…but the chances are that at a minimum the Director is also the Technical Director. If it’s a station following the trend of the industry, then the Director is running an automation system and isn’t necessarily able to watch the show as closely as a dedicated Director would be able to.

    And the producer. Well. We’re assuming the producer is paying attention to what’s on air and not to their phones, timing bar, and/or what is on the other stations.

  4. Great save. Sometimes a second third or fourh pair of eyes can be really helpful.
    The mistakes I always got a kick out of on TV were the ones where someones shirt or tie were the exact color of the ‘blue screen’ and you could see maps and things through their clothes.
    Back when I was studying broadcasting there were some on-camera no-nos too like bright reds and certain patterned clothes that created weird opitcal effects when on-camera. I still see that now and then but not often.

Leave a Reply to 793tango Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *