MILWAUKEE — A TV station has apologized after it filmed a reporter dancing at the scene of a fire that killed three children.
“Wake Up News,” WITI-TV’s morning news show, recorded Angelica Duria doing the “Dougie,” a hip hop style dance, during a break while she was reporting from the fire scene last Friday.
It aired the promo – along with other staffers performing the dance in the studio – the following day. It has since pulled the video from its website following criticism.
Nayeli, 5, and her two 4-year-old twin brothers, Alexis and Adrian, died when a fire broke out Thursday afternoon after they were left home alone. Duane Dudek, a reporter at The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, said that “the thin line between news and entertainment got a little thinner” with the “Wake Up News clip.”
Dudek condemned the fact that “no one thought twice about enlisting a reporter on an assignment in their reindeer games suggest an indifference to the distinction between news and entertainment.”
The Sentinel said reporters and photographers from other news organizations also at the scene witnessed the dance being filmed and wondered about its appropriateness.
WITI general manager Chuck Steinmetz said while he personally received multiple positive comments from viewers about the segment, they never intended to offend anyone.
“If we did we certainly apologize,” he said.