KPRC 2 made a mistake on its full page
On a story about Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo’s mandatory mask order and $1000 potential fine, the NBC affiliate accidentally wrote you can wear "homemade masks, scarfs, bananas."
Now I am no genius, but I am guessing the station meant bandannas (since Bret Michaels was just revealed as the rockin' banana on 'The Masked Singer,' I bet he has lots of extra bandannas).
UPDATE
- abc13 KTRK has its own error - no acknowledgment of mistake (4/28/2020)
- KPRC is offering branded banana-inspired face masks (4/23/2020)
Mistakes in TV have always happened. You might notice videos posted on this very blog about monthly TV bloopers.
I certainly can't point any fingers. There are times I go back to old posts on my own blog and cringe based on the spelling errors.
That being said, this mistake really caught fire more than usual, I am guessing because some of the population seems to be cool with the order while others aren't. Channel 2 even has a story about the reaction from Texas leaders.
One website wrote a story about the order and the typo.
Then today, the banana typo seemed to have slipped (see what I did there?) from my feed, but it wasn't totally forgotten as channel 2 addressed the event on social media!
In a post across its social media accounts, KPRC wrote text on a banana filled background saying, "Thanks for keeping us on our
Pretty funny.
Recognizing errors is not something TV stations usually do. Many viewers send me Houston TV on-air and online errors all the time, but I never see any acknowledgement from the stations.
A station I worked for once had a noticeable error in a newscast tease to commercial. One on air talent's microphone wasn't working so you couldn't hear them. The next person up tapped on their microphone and jokingly said, "Is this thing on?" From what I understand, that person who acknowledged the error with some personality, was called on the carpet when they returned to the station.
Hey, newspapers "Regret the Error," why can't television stations?
In the channel 2 banana case, based on the public's mood and the fact that lots of people have more time on their hands than ever, it was probably the right call for KPRC to lighten the mood.
All TV stations across the country promote themselves as the "all knowing"/"best journalists"/"smartest weather forecasters"/"most caring broadcasters"...the consultants have seen to this.
But the KPRC banana post shows that even TV brands can be human.
