Live on air, even with the best scripting and a highly skilled team behind you, anything can happen. Minor mishaps during live broadcasts rarely cause too much trouble, and most viewers are generally quite understanding when they do, but there are some combinations–such as, oh, a serious news bulletin and a doodle of a giant schlong– that tend to raise a few eyebrows.

As many of you may have seen, footage appeared online last week showing newscaster Siobhan Riley using a touchscreen to draw on a map of the local area during a live news bulletin, accidentally creating what some people think looks like a giant penis in the process. Unfortunately for Ms. Riley the news even made it out to Japan where netizens positively lapped it up.

The incident took place during a live ABC News broadcast when Ms. Riley was explaining how construction would affect the flow of traffic in the local area. The plan was the for caster to draw an easy-to-understand diagram on the touch-screen map as she went into the situation in detail. However the doodle ended up looking more like something that wouldn’t be out of place scrawled on the back of a kid’s school textbook. (Those of you who have yet to have the pleasure can check out the video in full at the foot of this article.)

Whether they could understand the words the presenter was using or not, there are no boundaries when it comes to pictures of phallic objects, and Japanese internet users were both shocked and amused by this unfortunate incident:

“Oh, dear me…”

“LOL how could this have slipped through the net?!”

“OMG I couldn’t stop laughing.”

“Please tell me that my eyes are playing tricks on me!”

“It’s very big isn’t it!”

“Yep, a biggun.”

“What a splendid drawing!”

“Definitely a wiener.”

Some netizens who saw the footage were in disbelief that the unfortunate caster even managed to draw the picture so effortlessly. There were also many who began to worry that she would be out of work soon. We’re sure she’ll be okay, though, somehow!

Over to you, Ms. Riley!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI-ltL_uXaE