The Dangers of Being a TV News Reporter

• jessleigh
  April 14th, 2008 at 9:41 pm

  I laughed, I cringed, I almost cried…
  I wish there was a follow-up so we could know what happened to some of those people, like the poor girl who caught on fire.

• Christophe
  April 14th, 2008 at 10:59 pm

  It’s wrong, but ROFLMAO!

• duende2517
  April 14th, 2008 at 11:39 pm

  heh heh. The perils of a journo’s life.

• Moodindigo
  April 15th, 2008 at 3:14 am

  The poor girl who caught on fire was Anthea Turner and unfortunately she’s fine and continues to blight British airwaves. “Anthea Turner: Perfect Housewife” has unfortunately finished it’s run but god, it was awful.

  Ugh, I need a shower…

• Stephanie
  April 15th, 2008 at 5:15 am

  Some of those were highly disturbing. I wonder if the guy w/ the plane, and the exploding microphone or whatever that was (weird) when the motorcycle went by, if they died?

• Pete Johnson
  April 15th, 2008 at 6:27 am

  Richard Wyatt was a reporter for a local English TV station assigned to do a story on the upcoming Weston Air Show. Showing up a day before the show meant there was nothing to film, save for a pilot practising ‘flour bombing’ - trying to hit a target on the ground by bunging flour bombs out the window of a plane. There was a very serious drought in 1976, so the soundman suggested that Wyatt wander around on the obviously dead grass with an umbrella, whereupon the plane would come into the shot and drop flour bombs on him. It provided some footage they could pad out with, and surely nothing could go wrong..

  Reporter vs Plane (http://tonytawt.tripod.com/) (6.8mb)

  His face was mashed up pretty badly, but amazingly he recovered within a few weeks and had no long-term injury. Subsequent examination of the plane wing showed how lucky he was - if the point of contact had been inches the wrong way then he’d have doubtlessly been killed. I’ve got a still of the plane wing somewhere.

  In case any of you were wondering, he’s alive and well and still working in TV today.

• ted
  April 15th, 2008 at 7:21 am

  “Put that on the news!”

• empty-minded
  April 15th, 2008 at 8:11 am

  Put a person in front of a camera with fast moving objects, live animals, slippery surfaces, and crazy people and see what happens. This is the same concept as for “Jackass”, except in the case of “Jackass” the crazy people were the stars.

• Thespian24601
  April 15th, 2008 at 1:13 pm

  It started out and I thought that it was going to be hilarious. But that was some scary stuff! And Stephanie, it was an explosion from when the motorcycle’s supposed to exit.

• diogenes
  April 15th, 2008 at 2:24 pm

  yeh, some scary stuff indeed. The guy getting hit by the low flying plane looks like his neck was snapped!
  Thanks Pete Johnson on your info. That one video bit is the strongest one for me.

• CheeseDuck
  April 15th, 2008 at 2:44 pm

  Augh… Can’t breath. Laughing to hard…

• Stephanie
  April 15th, 2008 at 3:21 pm

  Thanks Thespian24601 for explaining. I was like WTH happened there. And thanks Pete Johnson for explaining that one too, I thought the plane’s wing clipped him. I saw the stuff falling afterwards but thought it was debris from the wing. (That was kinda goofy letting yourself get flour bombed from a plane?!)

  Anyway, this makes me not want to be an on-site reporter, w/o a weapon or back-up at least.

• JakeTheSnake
  April 16th, 2008 at 1:23 am

  special note: if you plan to drive anything with a motor durring a news broadcast, you should probably know how to drive it

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