BBC presenter APOLOGISES after she was caught giving the middle finger to the camera live on air in ‘private joke with the team’
A BBC news presenter has apologized after he was caught live on air flashing his middle finger at the camera in a “private joke” as he opened a top-rated news bulletin.
In viral footage, Maryam Moshiri can be seen raising her eyebrows and turning off the camera as she appears on screen after the end of the programme’s famous musical countdown.
Moshiri, 46, one of the network’s main presenters, appears to quickly realize she is alive and withdraws her hand before reading headlines about Boris Johnson.
“Live from London, this is BBC News,” she says, quickly turning to a more serious tone.
She apologized on social media this morning, saying she “didn’t realize” the moment would be caught on camera and she was “sorry if I offended or upset anyone.”
The presenter seems to quickly realize that she is alive and withdraws her hand, adopting a more appropriate demeanor as she begins to read out the headlines.
Ms Moshiri said: “Hi everyone, yesterday just before hour I was having a bit of a joke with the team in the gallery.
“I pretended to count down while the director counted me down from 10 to 0… using his fingers to show the number.
“So, it went from 10 fingers to one. When we got to 1, I jokingly turned my finger and didn’t realize it was going to be caught on camera.
“It was a private joke from the crew and I’m really sorry it aired!” I didn’t mean for this to happen and I’m very sorry if I offended or upset anyone.
“I wasn’t really flipping the bird at the audience or even the person. It was a stupid joke, intended for a small number of my friends.”
However, in a sign that she may have realized her hand gesture was being shown on air, she scrambled the end of the headline to refer to the “coronaverse” pandemic.
The gaffe occurred on the BBC News world feed at 12 noon UK time on Wednesday. A channel in the UK showed Prime Minister’s Questions, so a global audience listened to headlines delivered from London.
Viewers reacted online, with some suggesting the sentence showed unprofessionalism, while others joked that they felt the same way about their work.
Maryam Moshiri was announced as part of the BBC News Channel’s new line-up of top presenters back in February.
At 7am, Twitter/X user NeilFleisc79365 captured the moment and posted it online with the caption: “Wow!”
Ms Moshiri was a long-time BBC business news presenter, interviewing some of the world’s most prominent CEOs, including Jeff Bezos.
She was the channel’s lead news anchor for over 15 years before being promoted to chief anchor in 2019.
Ms Moshiri studied languages at UCL before completing a postgraduate diploma in broadcast journalism.
This is not the first example of presenters swearing at BBC News: the corporation was forced to apologize after meteorologist Tomasz Schafernaker made a similarly rude gesture.
In 2010, Schafernaker was about to give a weather forecast when news anchor Simon McCoy made a light-hearted remark.
“Now in a minute we’ll get the weather forecast and of course it will be 100 percent accurate and give us all the information we need,” McCoy said. “I just saw Tom Schafernaker preparing for this.”
Believing he was off camera, Mr. Schafernaker motioned to McCoy with the middle finger.
Instantly realizing his mistake, Schafernaker brought his hand to his face to disguise it, pretending to scratch his chin.
The clip received millions of views online and cemented his place as one of the Beebe’s most popular meteorologists.
In September, Ms Moshiri made headlines with her hilarious impromptu image of a rare blue supermoon when an image of the lunar event failed to appear on screen.
“I’m really sorry, I don’t have a photo to show you,” a panicked Ms Moshiri told onlookers.
In 2010, Schafernaker was about to present a weather forecast when he gave news anchor Simon McCoy the middle finger.
In September, Moshiri made headlines with her hilarious impromptu image of a rare blue supermoon when an image of the lunar event failed to appear on screen.
The presenter improvised by raising her hands to form a circle to represent the full moon.
Ms Moshiri was announced as part of the BBC News Channel’s new line-up of top presenters back in February.
In July, it was announced that she would take over The Daily Global, which she continues to co-host.
The BBC has been contacted for comment.