Jeremy Kappell: WHEC chief meteorologist fired after MLK apparently broadcast



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An NBC television affiliate meteorologist in Rochester, NY, was fired after being accused of using a racial insult about Martin Luther King Jr. However, Jeremy Kappell, WHEC Chief Meteorologist, simply said

A video broadcast on social media from Kappell's broadcast shows it apparently calling a park called in the honor of the rights leader assassinated "Martin Luther King Coon Jr. Park".

WHEC Managing Director Richard Reingold wrote on the station's website that the station had a "change of personnel" on Sunday. "These words have no place on News10NBC, and the fact that we broadcast them disapproves and disgusts me," he wrote.

Kappell tweeted Monday that "I have never uttered these words of my life". He said that he had simply balanced his words by speaking too quickly

Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren, black, was among those who demanded Kappell's dismissal, but many supporters on Twitter.

In a video posted on Facebook on Monday night, Kappell said:

"If you look at me regularly, you will know that my weather contains a lot of information that forces me to speak quickly and unfortunately, I spoke a little too fast when I was talking about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – so fast that I mixed in. In my mind, I knew that I had pronounced wrong, but there was no malice there, There was nothing I could have … I did not know at all how that had happened.As soon as I pronounced it incorrectly, I put the accent on King and I had no idea what some people might have interpreted as and I know some people.It is not a word of what I said, I promise you.And if you I sincerely regret it "

Thank you very much to all those who supported us. I wanted to take this time to explain our side of the story. Please, keep my family in your prayers.

Posted by Jeremy Kappell on Monday, January 7, 2019

In 2010, ESPN's talk show host, Mike Greenberg, used the same phrase at one radio broadcast in apparent verbal blur. and issued an apology later in the day. He was not disciplined.

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