A TV journalist has been disciplined for calling a fellow presenter a “c***” on a regional publisher’s television channel.
Helen McDermott was recording a link on Archant’s Mustard TV with colleague Darren Eadie, the former Norwich City and Leicester City player, when she used the c-word to describe him.
The offending segment with Eadie, pictured left, was not intended to air, but was broadcast after an editing mix-up.
The clip, which was removed from any repeat showing on the channel or online by Archant, can still be seen on YouTube.
In it, Helen said: “This is what happened when this c*** went to Happisburgh beach to look at some fossils or something.”
Helen, a former Anglia Television newsreader, has since publicly apologised on the channel for the language used in the take.
The gaffe comes after another local TV channel, Made in Leeds, was rapped by regulator Ofcom earlier this month after the same word was used by a member of the public in a vox pop during its very first broadcast.
The foul language was then aired again during a repeat broadcast of the show the following morning.
Fiona Ryder, managing director of Mustard TV Ltd, said: “In a recent pre-recorded segment of a Mustard TV show, presenter Helen McDermott used inappropriate language in an exchange with a colleague.
“The segment was subsequently re-recorded, but the wrong edit of the segment was broadcast. Helen and Mustard TV apologise for this lapse and for any offence caused.
“An apology from Helen was carried on Mustard TV at the next available opportunity and the inappropriate language was removed immediately from any repeat showing live or online.
“Internal disciplinary action has been taken with the presenter concerned.”
Ofcom says it has not received any complaints about the incident.
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This is another fine example of the high levels of professionalism and integrity evinced by “local TV”. How much lower do we go?
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No complaints received? Wonder how many people actually watch Mustard TV?
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With such cringeworthy, low-brow presenters, why would anyone with half a brain want to tune in to Mustard TV in the first place ?
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What a c.. oopps
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Maybe I should not be, but I am shocked a woman should use this word. Obviously a modern young lady.
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It’s just one big carnival of errors here believe me, another week another foot shooting incident at Archant.
Luckily as has been said already, Mustard TV has so few viewers that no one will have noticed, hence no ones complained to Ofcom
All in all the sorry price of a vanity project manned by incompetents and lacking professionalism
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An ex footballer and an ex local TV newsreading sweary panto fairy , says all you need to know about Mustard TV.
and will the person behind the scenes who put this to air be disciplined too?
If this isn’t the excuse they need to pull the plug on this embassing money pit then I don’t know what is.
Alan partridge would be proud
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Lol, if you don’t get sacked for that, what do you get sacked for?
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I’ve seen Made in Leeds a couple of times, dreadful broadcast quality, particularly the sound. It’s on VirginMedia if anyone wants to check it out. Last time I looked there was a shopping channel on it so presumably it shares air time.
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Decent journalists were sacked to pay for this abomination of a TV station which nobody watches anyway.
Isn’t it time that bosses faced up to the error of their ways and pulled the plug.
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TV news journalism in general is garbage anyway, full of preening egotists who swagger around like they’re above print, when all they actually do is copy your stories from yesterday – sometimes often word for word – and then film themselves stood outside the court.
Panorama, Dispatches etc do proper journalism, but most TV news is just pazazz, interspersed by the station’s resident oddball ‘man of the people’ trying eating black pudding while dressed as Frank Sidebottom.
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Acknowledging the possibility of a £6m tax liability one week and now this! And yet no-one , it seems, is accountable! This lack of accountability in the ranks of Archant management gets to the very heart of what is inherently wrong in the company. Until there is a fundamental culture change and management are held accountable for their actions there can, in my view, be little hope for the future. Little is said but elements of local newspaper production are being transferred to Norwich and, of course, staff are being made redundant in the process. No one is standing up, like the fable of the boy and the Emperor’s clothes, and saying: This is wrong. The current middle management are compliant and some have little or no knowledge of newspapers and their role in the community, and those who do speak out are manipulated out of the door by an HR department concerned with preserving its own ivory tower.
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Jeff Jones. Agree. Why do they persist on regional tv in the stupid idea of perching a reporter outside a closed court, cop shop, you name it at allegedly 10.30 pm to tell us…..nothing new. Money to be saved there.
As for Mustard, just abysmal in every way.
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You couldnt make this stuff up could you? Yet another PR disaster for Archant which if it were another Norfolk company would find themselves plastered all over the front of the allegedly ‘tub thumpingly cracking’ EDP and being investigated by their own investigations team.
It’s not even April fools day yet either,so let’s hope for their sakes there’s not a repeat of the ‘banjo statue’ story that they led with this time last year, as I said, you couldn’t make it
AH haaaaa!
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Laughed out loud at this. Well done Helen – best bit ever on that so-called TV station. Single-handedly quadrupled the viewing figures in one go.
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That’ll be up to eight viewers then!
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That’s the issue Steve Hutchings , as one who works there we all know the middle managers are simply yes men doing whatever they have to to keep in favour and keep their jobs, many are critical of the company in private to anyone who will listen.
Most if not all have sold out just to get a trumped up title and a few extra ££££ but whilst losing all credibility with their colleagues by doing so.
Sadly until someone in charge makes people accountable and makes changes they will remain in the sorry state they’ve been in for ages. The new regime talks the talk but nothings changed, if anything it’s got worse, it’s been a steady succession of embarassing faux pas which further emphasises that it will take more than boasts,rallying calls and a new One email signature to turn this ship around.
As for the dreadful Mustard tv, it’s a complete shambles,waste of money and the sooner the company flicks the off switch the better, today’s fiasco must surely be the last straw.
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I don’t think you can blame Helen too much for this. Ok, it was silly, but it was an off the cuff remark in a prerecorded slot which seemed to have already gone off track and was almost certainly in need of a retake. The real question is how this was allowed to go out. Another victim of the churn it out, don’t worry about the quality mentality which is actively encouraged in Archant newsrooms.
On another note, anybody see the Investigations Unit’s first splash the other day? Some figures copied off the ONS website telling us that Norfolk was full of old people. Panorama will be quaking in their boots.
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One would assume that the managing director of mustard TV will take full responsibility for this matter or will the CEO step in and take action himself?
What with this latest embarassment and the ongoing catalogue of mismanagement, bad PR disasters and dreadful sales figures the forthcoming share holders meeting should be very interesting.
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Of all the people in that place she could have called a c-word and she chose Darren Eadie?
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if this was Clarkson he’d be sacked. The managerial staff at Archant are probably so in awe of Helen that if they do sack someone it will be some minion. Much like they did with the circulation fiasco
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That first story by the investigations unit mentioned above, while being what would be regarded as a bog-standard story a few years ago, reeked of ‘oh dear we haven’t got a splash’ before arm twisting the so-called IU to rush out something early.
The subsequent ‘There is an ageing population’ shocker and frankly baffling graphics reinforced the above assertion.
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Fully agree with Biter about the weakness of the Investigations Unit’s first splash.
Didn’t exactly require too much digging, did it?
There have been many pieces written about Norfolk’s ageing population. Guess what, they are congregating in North Norfolk, which is where they have always gone to retire.
I don’t even think it should have been a front page lead.
Come on Investigations Unit, time to raise the bar. Anyone for Norfolk’s Watergate?
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The Investigations Unit – digging out stories which reporters used to bash out in an afternoon, once newsdesk returned from the pub and realised they had six empty pages to fill.
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The investigations unit should have a slot on mustard TV where they doorstep and expose tax dodgers, foul language used in the workplace, bribing the public to supply goods for cinema tickets and companies who falsify their sales figures. There must be a company somewhere in Norfolk guilty of those practices surely
Just got to investigate and find one
It shouldn’t worry the company under investigation as being on Mustard TV no one will see it
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I’d love to know which media company the HTFP commenters work for because with all that knowledge they’ve got it must be flying. Or is it just easier to point and mock from afar rather than actually get stuck in, try new things and try and make something work?
I find it sad just how bitter people have become on the comment section of this website.
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I’ll tell you something Steve S, I bet none of us have ever called somebody a c-word on TV or printed a story about a giant banjo.
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Steve S: I wonder who you work for, and in what capacity, if you can discern any angle from which this appalling departure from professional standards and basic decency can be defended. As other posters have asked – where was the editorial control that should have prevented this farrago? I suggest the commercial imperative of “just get something, anything, out there” is responsible for what happened here. Of course sales are important to editorial staff as they pay their wages. But sales should work in partnership with high-quality editorial to maximise the impact of both. How is it “bitter” to lament the abandonment of this partnership in some companies?
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Helen McDermott’s foul-mouthed outburst made The Sun today!
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“Try new things and try and make something work?” Steve S from the Midlands?
If you think the new thing is broadcasting the C word and is acceptable, or for an “investigations unit ” to present back the fact that North Norfolk has an elderly demographic as their first investigative finding then I most certainly don’t.
If that’s as good as it gets i would pull the plug on the dreadfull Mustard TV and wouldn’t bother investigating anything else.
And it wouldn’t be easy to point and mock if there wasnt so much to point and mock at would there?
But I guess if you live in the Midlands you won’t have seen mustard TV or the investigations units report for yourself,
If you had then maybe you would appreciate the strength of opinion on here
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Tax liability and HMRC issues
Shocking ABC figures for all titles
Sales figures at all time lows
Removing the name of their once popular dailies from the head office building
Offering cinema tickets for stories
An investigations unit instead of proper journalism
Self important tweets puffing up the EDP
The partridge-esque Mustatd tv
Falling for an April fool PR piece about a banjo statue and leading with it
And now this!
Tell me, Is David Brent, Basil Fawlty or Fred Carno in charge there these days ?
The level of ineptitude and ‘own goals’ beggars belief
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Just when you think Archant and the dreadful Mustard tv can’t do themselves any more self inflicted damage or get any worse
No direction? or a rudderless ship?
Probably both,you decide
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I think this is ridiculous, when you put on a stage production and you ad lib because you have made a mistake the odd expletive may pop out, hence aunties bloomers and outtakes, they all swear, and the production team does not accidentally leave it in the final product. Its the person that left it in and aired that should be marched out of the building if not we should review years of outtakes and start disciplining the people that have made mistakes in the outtakes from all shows that have presenters of the past.
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That’s fair comment James but anyone who has worked in TV knows that is the one word always out of bounds in the studio.
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Mustard TV , they think it’s all over
….. It is now!
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Beggars belief that mustard T V can carry on as if nothing has happened after Helen McDermott used the ‘c’ word, we don’t watch mustard T V Monday to Thursday anymore whilst she is on, Darren & Beth were far the best pairing, we do watch Fridays.
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It’s the technician who is to blame for airing a piece that should never have been used JayJay,not HMc also the Md Herself should be accountable for this disgraceful episode and the general content and amateurish output from this awful waste of money but as you say, they carry on as if it’s a trivial matter, ignoring the latest elephant in the Archant room
Surely the editorial director is ultimately responsible for all Archant editorial output irrespective of medium Or is that Just another cosmetic title which carries no clout?
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