Blooper


It's the 60's. Not many people are listening to FM radio. No announcing experience, we don't care. You're hired.
	Instructions from my new boss. "You'll be doing a 15 minute newscast at 6 PM. At exactly 6:15, switch to a live feed from the National Weather Bureau." I didn't want to be a news reporter, but I'm happy to get any radio job.
My first day on the air. I arrive at the station at 2 o'clock. I pull copy from the Associated Press tele-type machine. I gather national, state and sports news. I quickly learn there's not a lot of new news. AP rewrites "the same stuff" all day. I look for more stories.
	In no time, it was show time. I wasn't very nervous. This was what I wanted to do. And besides, most of the listeners were my buddies at the dorm.
It's 6 o'clock. I started reading the news and it was going great. No problems. Except, when I looked at the clock it was only 6:06. It seemed like I'd been talking for an hour. I was out of stories.
	I couldn't quit early because I had to join the weatherman live at 6:15. So I said, "Repeating the top stories..." And then, I proceeded to repeat all the stories.
It continued to go well until I realized I'm still going to come up a couple minutes short. I couldn't do the "repeating the top stories" thing again, so I decided to fill the time with news items I had originally rejected and thrown in the trash.
	With one eye looking in the wastebasket, one eye on the clock, one eye on the news copy,
	I attempted to read this simple line.


The flash fire was first reported...

	I said:

"The flash f l y e r...

the f r a s h fire...

the flash f r y e r...

the f r e s h f i r e...

the flash fire... was fist reperted


I learned a lot that first day as an announcer.

1. Preparation and concentration are extremely important.

2. Watch out for potential tongue-twisters.

3. It takes a lot of copy to fill 15 minutes.

4. Buddies will say you sounded great no matter what.




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