AN AMERICAN TV weather forecaster has sought to play down the controversy that arose after she was asked to don a cardigan live on air.
Liberte Chan, a forecaster with tv news station KTLA5, was presenting the weather last Saturday whilst wearing a black dress.
While doing so, a cardigan was handed to her from off-screen.
When she asked why, again live on air, a response comes from off-screen saying “we’re getting a lot of emails”.
Video of the incident has caused something of a furore online. The station received in the region of 8,000 tweets in the aftermath, many of which saw the issue as an example of body-shaming.
KTLA5 now claim that the handing of the cardigan to Chan was an attempt at “satirising” the number of emails the station had received, an approach that Chan concurs with.
The station’s anchors said in a broadcast earlier today that the dress Chan had initially brought to work had been incompatible with the green screen being used for the forecast, with the controversial black dress being her back-up.
“For the record I was not ordered by KTLA to put on the sweater,” Chan has since written on her blog.
I was simply playing along with my co-anchor’s joke, and if you’ve ever watched the morning show, you know we poke fun at each other all the time.
“Also for the record, there is no controversy at KTLA. My bosses did not order me to put on the cardigan, it was a spontaneous moment.”
I truly love my job, I like my bosses and enjoy working with my coworkers. Since talking to my team, I want our viewers to know it was never our intention to offend anyone. We are friends on and off the air and if you watch our newscast, you know that.
Chan went through a similar incident in February when the green dress she was wearing proved to be a problem for the green screen she was standing in front of.
On that occasion she was likewise given a jacket to wear in order to continue the forecast.
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