Kelly Thomas Murder Trial Brings La-La Land Teevee Reporters and Their La-La Land Flubs


The Kelly Thomas murder trial has brought Los Angeles-based television reporters to a place quite unfamiliar to them: Orange County. As a result, many are a-bumbling and a-stumbling through their live remotes, as they've obviously got the afternoon-drive traffic back to La-La Land on their minds. Poor babies.
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Now, we can't catch all the coverage, all the time, especially since
we never got those digital converter boxes. (Money better spent on
brown liquor, we say.) So, we turn to you, dear readers. What's the most-outrageous thing you've seen during the teevee coverage? Please share in the comments below.

To get us started, here is something Dan Kaufman posted on Facebook:

I caught the Fox 11 news report last night and it was so thoroughly sickening and enraging. First, the woman they apparently pulled in off the street to report called him Kelly Tompson–repeatedly! (And she was clearly reading from the teleprompter.) After warning everyone to leave the room because the images were too graphic, she proceeded to suggest there was creedence to the idea that his bruising was due to the iv fluids doctors gave him in an effort to save his life!!! Oh, hell no! Hard to even think about it now, it's so outrageous… Keep getting the word out, brotha.

I only found two videos from the preliminary hearing on MyFoxLA.com. The one I suspect Mr. Kaufman is referring to begins (after a brief commercial) in the middle of the field reporter's story, so perhaps the “Kelly Tompson” bit was edited out. That one also included no embed code. Here is the second video below, with no such slip-ups.

Interesting here, though, is Fox LA's legal expert, Robin Sax, near the end of the clip, suggesting DA Tony Rackauckas is presenting key evidence he'd normally save for trial in the prelim because either: a) he knows the case is going to be tossed, so he's at least outraging the public, or b) he knows he'll lose at trial so he's trying to force the defense into a plea bargain. Either outcome would be more infuriating than getting Kelly's name wrong.

Kelly Thomas Hearing Day 2: MyFoxLA.com

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