Al Roker and Dr. Bernice King are coming to the defense of a former television meteorologist who was fired for making a racial slur during a live broadcast.
WHEC chief meteorologist Jeremy Kappell was fired Jan. 7 after referring to Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park in Rochester, New York, as “Martin Luther Coon King Jr. Park” during a weather segment Friday evening in New York.
Three days later, News10NBC general manager Richard A. Reingold announced on air that Kappell no longer worked for the station and said he was “terribly sorry to all of our viewers.”
Reingold noted in a statement online that he regrets the station “did not immediately interrupt our broadcast and apologize on the spot.”
Kappell claims his word choice was nothing more than a flub, and at the time he didn’t realize how it was interpreted by viewers.
“I had no idea the way it came across to many people,” Kappell said Monday during a Facebook Live video. “That is not a word I said, I promise you that. If you did feel that it hurt you in any way, I sincerely apologize. I would never want to tarnish the reputation of a such a great man as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., one of the greatest civic leaders of all time.”
Not only has he received an outpouring of support online from viewers, even Al Roker thinks he deserves a break.
“I think @JeremyKappell made an unfortunate flub and should be given the chance to apologize on @news10nbc,” Roker tweeted Wednesday. “Anyone who has done live tv and screwed up (google any number of ones I’ve done) understands.”
, Martin Luther King Jr.‘s daughter also thinks the meteorologist deserves a shot at redemption.
Dr. Bernice King tells TMZ that there was a better way to handle the situation than firing the guy and agrees that in this instance, Kappell’s racial slur seems to be a mistake.
Do you believe the slur was just an honest mistake?
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