Spin Cycle

TV meteorologist's cover-up stirs up dust devil of responses

Cover up: This screen shot shows KTLA’s meteorologist Liberte Chan being handed a sweater by her co-worker.
Cover up: This screen shot shows KTLA’s meteorologist Liberte Chan being handed a sweater by her co-worker.

Lady Liberte went viral last week.

By Liberte, we're referring to Liberte Chan, a meteorologist for Los Angeles TV station KTLA, Channel 5. She got attention not for her weather address, but for her dress on a recent Saturday.

Well, what there was of it.

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The lovely Liberte donned a LBD (Little Black Dress), emphasis on the L. Revealing her arms, shoulders, neck and legs, the spaghetti strap, above-the-knee outfit wasn't risque, but it was more revealing than traditional TV news apparel. Bountifully beaded, the sparkly cocktail dress that would look outstanding on New Year's Eve, looked out of place on a May morning.

She was reporting clear conditions, but, oh there would be dark clouds and torrential storms ahead!

Midreport, an arm from an off-screen co-worker could be seen holding a gray cardigan.

"What's going on?" she asked the arm's owner, morning anchor Chris Burrous. "You want me to put this on? Why? 'Cause it's cold?"

As he assisted her with the sweater, Burrous replied, "We're getting a lot of emails. There you go."

"What?! Really?" she said, surprised. Catching a look at her frumpier makeover in the monitor, she said, "I look like a librarian now."

"That works," Burrous said. "It's a librarian who's gone to a cocktail party."

Chan, who tied the bottom of the sweater around her midsection, giving it a shrug look, said with another sort of shrug, "Well, I'm sorry, but the other dress didn't work. So, I had to wear something."

The dress she had planned to wear that day wasn't a fit with the green screen. Doesn't she know what works? Then again, while she has been in TV news since 2003, she only became a meteorologist in 2015. What I want to know is where did that black dress come from. The club the night before?

A cyclone of social media messages swirled, shaming Burrous for being sexist toward Chan.

"Hope the jerk gets fired for humiliating her live," tweeted one.

"@KTLA you owe @libertechan a formal apology. As a viewer and woman I'm completely disturbed to see this woman publicly shamed doing her job," tweeted another.

Another was upset at KTLA, but for a different reason: "I am a librarian. Stop with the stereotypes! #cardigans LOL."

For a meteorologist perspective on this, I turned to friend Melinda Mayo of Little Rock's KATV, Channel 7. As for the green chroma key wall, she agrees they can be tricky: "I know I can't wear green, but sometimes even a teal or turquoise outfit can put Sheridan on my stomach and Dumas on my kneecaps. Not a good look."

As for Chan, Mayo says, "She's a beautiful girl in a beautiful dress, and it's Los Angeles! They wake up in black cocktail dresses, right?

"I don't think I'd try it here in Arkansas. We keep the studio way too cold for an LBD! And I don't think it was sexist. I mean, if Ned [Perme], Barry [Brandt] or Todd [Yakoubian] started wearing tank tops on the air, we'd get a few emails too!

"I think her co-anchor was just trying to be funny handing her a sweater. We like to tease each other on our show, too. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't."

Chan's response to #sweatergate has been a sunny one. As Mayo suggested, she and her co-workers were simply having a good time.

On her Life of Liberte blog, the California meteorologist wrote, "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.

"And, also for the record, there is no controversy at KTLA. My bosses did not order me to put on the cardigan, it was a spontaneous moment. I truly love my job, I like my bosses and enjoy working with my co-workers. Since talking to my team, I want our viewers to know it was never our intention to offend anyone. We are friends on and off the air and if you watch our newscast, you know that."

There, that should lower everyone's temperatures and normalize the atmospheric pressure.

No rain checks. Just email:

jchristman@arkansasonline.com

Spin Cycle is a smirk at pop culture. You can hear Jennifer on Little Rock's KURB-FM, B98.5 (B98.com), from 5:30-9 a.m. Monday through Friday.

Style on 05/22/2016

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