Media Humor

Anchor Ad-Libs News With 97 Percent Accuracy

Veteran KLKN lead anchor Steve Hart, who has delivered over 5,000 newscasts for the ABC affiliate over 21 years, improvised the entire 6 p.m. report with remarkable accuracy Monday after his TelePrompTer malfunctioned just 15 seconds into the broadcast.

"A devastating fire on the city's south side has left two members of a family dead and three injured," said Hart, whose fabrication of a Lincoln City Council vote to ban smoking in area supper clubs proved completely correct, even though the anchor had no prior knowledge of the event. "And a local high school math teacher sits in a downtown jail tonight, charged with the statutory rape of a minor in his class."

According to news director David Silverstein, Hart was only wrong once: when he slightly overestimated the number of points by which the local high school basketball team lost.