KTLA new station caused no small degree of controversy this week, after a video of one of its crew handing weather woman Liberté Chan a cardigan went viral. Now the station has responded to the outrage, saying that the moment was an example of the “teasing” the show’s hosts routinely engage in with one another, while condemning the stir it has caused.
The offending video, which saw Chan handed a cardigan with which to cover her shoulders after news anchor Chris Burrous told her the station was “getting a lot of emails” about it, saw money criticizing the seemingly brazen display of sexism on behalf of KTLA’s dress over a thoroughly innocuous choice of attire on Chan’s behalf. Chan, who seems embarrassed after donning the cardigan handed to her by a disembodied arm of a fellow crew member, then stated that she “feels like a librarian” after pulling the ill-fitting garment over her.
The footage was promptly shared around social networking sites and was the subject of many articles criticizing the station, leading to KTLA making an official statement regarding the incident during one of their broadcasts. During the news show, Burrous addressed the criticisms that had been lobbed in their direction, saying: “Context is really important and a word that’s often lost in the trigger-happy world of the Internet. On Saturday morning, Liberté brought a dress to work and it didn’t work. The green screen here has a fashion sense of its own – some things bleed, sometimes you’ll see the map and not the outfit.”
He continued: “So she has a little black dress on hand here for events… so she wore the little black dress and some viewers sent emails complaining, and in the spirit of satirizing the viewer complaints, Liberté was handed a sweater on the air to change the little black dress into something, y’know, that isn’t so much evening wear. On average, we do 6.8 gags here per morning. Some work, some don’t. But there’s a certain atmosphere, and so that’s it. Or is it? The Internet grabs the tape, with no context about the show… this has gone all over the globe.”
Burrous then repeated excerpts from a blog post Liberté had written regarding the controversy, in which she stated: “For the record, I was not ordered by KTLA to put on the sweater. 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.”
Watch Burrous’ comments in the video below:
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