German Reporter Suspended For Smearing Mud on Clothes

Susanna Ohlen apologized, said she'd been ashamed her clothes were clean
By Liz MacGahan,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 25, 2021 3:10 PM CDT
German Reporter Apologizes For Smearing Mud on Clothes
A man helps with the cleanup by carrying rubbish and debris after heavy rain and flooding along the Erft in Bad M?nstereifel, Germany July 17. On the night of July 15, the Erft floods totally devastated the historic core of the city and flooded streets and shops.   (Roberto Pfeil/dpa via AP)

A German reporter has been suspended from her TV station after smearing herself with mud before broadcasting from a flooded town. Susanna Ohlen, who works for RTL’s Good Morning Germany program, said she had been helping with clean-up efforts in the days preceding the broadcast but felt ashamed to be neat as a pin on camera while reporting from a mud-covered street, the BBC reports. She can be seen in a video posted to Twitter bending over, putting her hands into the mud, and touching her clothes and face. The video, not part of the broadcast, was shot by a bystander.

Ohlen has since apologized, issuing a statement on Instagram. “As a journalist, this should never have happened to me. As a person who cares about the suffering of all concerned, it happened to me,” she wrote. "Our reporter's approach clearly contradicts journalistic principles and our own standards,” RTL wrote in a statement. Ohlen had been reporting on the aftermath of devastating flooding that killed more than 200 people in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. (More flooding stories.)

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