A weather presenter’s live broadcast was interrupted by a colleague handing her a cardigan after viewers complained about the dress she was wearing.
Liberté Chan, a meteorologist and presenter for Los Angeles based local news station KTLA, was informing viewers of the prospective Californian weather for the weekend on Saturday morning when an arm appeared passing her a grey cardigan.
“You want me to put this on?” she asked. “Why? Because it’s cold?”
“We’re getting a lot of emails,” replied an off-camera male voice to which Ms Chan exclaimed: “What, really?”
Ms Chan and her colleague later posted a video to Facebook where they read through several of the emails from apparently appalled viewers.
“I’m a regular watcher of KTLA news but Liberte Chan’s dress is totally inappropriate, it looks like she didn’t make it home from her cocktail party last night,” said one while another said the outfit choice was a “display of very poor judgement”.
Despite the apparent slew of negative emails, the clip soon went viral sparking a discussion about sexism in the workplace. Many viewers criticised the network on social media for the way the incident was handled and the double standards women on television face.
Since the incident did the rounds of the internet, Ms Chan wrote a blog post defending KTLA, claiming she was not ordered to put the sweater on by producers and was just “playing along with my co-anchor’s joke”.
Ms Chan was also keen for the conversation surrounding what she was wearing not to ultimately overshadow the job she was there to do, writing optimistically: “More importantly, I hope my viewers were able to plan their Saturday once they heard my forecast and enjoyed the sunny weather after the clouds cleared,” she wrote.
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