One thing that comes with time is knowing your weaknesses.
One of mine is being a perfectionist. I don’t like making
mistakes and I admit that, when mistakes of mine are pointed out to me, I get
very defensive. I find it hard to just shake it off and not dwell upon it.
Part of this comes from being in the profession that I’ve
been in for over 40 years. It’s a business that doesn’t come with an eraser and
where mistakes are often magnified, overblown and remembered for long periods
of time.
Jeremy Kappell is the latest to fall victim to
an
apparent mistake
. During a live newscast at a Rochester, New York
television station over the weekend, the veteran weather forecaster referred to a
local park named for civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. as “Martin Luther
Coon King.”
It didn’t take long for the flub to go viral as a “racial
slur.” Instead of allowing Kappell to make a public apology for his remark,
which was something that he says he was more than willing to do, the station
promptly sacked him. Whether the station had a “zero tolerance” policy when it comes to such utterances by its employees wasn't immediately dislosed.
The firing pleased the African-American mayor of Rochester, New
York, who called for his head. Apparently Lovely Warren has some recent “
mistakes
”
that she doesn’t want to own up on, but nobody is calling for her head.
The damage has been done. Kappell will probably have a tough
time getting another job with this hanging over him. The terms “toxic” and “political
correctness” come to mind when prospective employers do their due diligence on him.
All because of a “mistake.”
Thanks!
