Michelle Burdo, morning anchor for Meredith owned Atlanta CBS affiliate WGCL, has apologized for using the term “colored woman” during Monday morning’s newscast.
Yesterday, Burdo had several African American women on set to demonstrate hair care tips for summertime when she said, “Let me tell you something. I’m not a colored woman but I have kinky hair just like her,” referencing a local hair care expert.
According to Rodney Ho of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Burdo apologized on-air this morning saying, “Yesterday I made a pretty insensitive remark during one of our segments here on Better Mornings Atlanta. I apologize. Once again, I truly want to say from the bottom of my heart that I really am sorry about that comment. I made that in reference to my hair color but I used an inappropriate term.”
When TVSpy asked WGCL news director Lane Michaelsen why the station posted the segment on its website with Burdo’s “colored woman” reference edited out, Michaelsen said, “As Michelle mentioned in her apology she used an insensitive remark during the segment and that remark was removed when the video was posted.” See the station’s edited version after the jump.
When we asked if the station should have referenced the removed the phrase after posting, Michaelsen told us, “As you know most journalism organizations edit videos before posting, we do to. In this video we edited out the insensitive comment.”
Here’s the version the station posted: