After an inflammatory racist slur mysteriously surfaced in one of their forecast images last Thursday, an Iowa weather station sparked a furor. Journalist Matthew Keys called attention to the meteorological error in a now-viral tweet on Friday.
“Hello Des Moines, This is your weather my N—–s.”
The Weather Channel, however, disputes that it was responsible for the slur.
In response to Keys’ tweet, a spokeswoman said, “This did not originate with us, and we are in the process of investigating it further.”
The journalist speculated in a subsequent tweet that the network is still attempting to figure out where the nefarious plot came from, but that it probably started at the cable head-end.
His theory was supported by several comments. One amateur local news expert surmised, “This came from the cable provider. A rogue cable employee must have messed with the files and caused it to say that,” said the cable executive. “TWC has computer units at cable headends to produce the locale on the 8s.”
The Weather Channel confirms this graphic accidentally made it on air in the Des Moines market on Thursday during a "Locals on the 8s" segment. I've blurred it, but I'm pretty sure you can figure out what it said. pic.twitter.com/hDVcomawGp
— Matthew Keys (@MatthewKeysLive) July 22, 2022
Since then, according to reports, TWC has removed the repulsive image and posted an apology on Facebook.
Strangely, Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr., believed that the exiled weatherman shouldn’t have been dismissed and that Kappell should have received implicit bias training or a promotion instead.
Al Roker, a well-known weatherman, supported the disgraced forecaster as well.
“I think @JeremyKappell made an unfortunate flub and should be given the chance to apologize on @news10nbc Anyone who has done live tv and screwed up (google any number of ones I’ve done) understands,” he tweeted at the time.
