A follow-up to the story of AJ Clemente, the guy who had the anchorman's worst first night ever. As I wrote earlier, it's becoming more and more apparent that -- aside from cursing on the air -- what happened was not his fault.
On "The Today Show" this morning, Clemente explained two reasons he didn't know he was on the air when he blurted out the expletives -- the newscast started thirty seconds earlier than it was supposed to, and neither he nor the other anchor were wearing an IFB earpiece through which they could have heard a countdown from the control room. So, with no one on the floor to tell them when the newscast had begun, Tieu (the female co-anchor) just happened to look up and notice the red light on the camera go on, so she started talking while Clemente had no idea what was happening.
In other words, the fact that the newscast had begun was news to him...
Clemente will also tell his story to David Letterman tonight.