If You're Going To Read The News in English, Speak English

I'm all for diversity. I'm all for different voices reading the news. But, if you're reading the news in english, please be able to understandably speak english.

It's one thing if the person is a source, or the only person available, but just because you're looking for diversity, don't put unqualified people on the air. Adding a disabled person or a speaker who is not understandable* simply makes the news less accessible, especially to non-native english speakers who may have problems understanding other thick accents and/or difficult speech patterns.

All this does is make me change the channel. Even when it's my favorite station, one I happen to volunteer my time to.

So, how do we help people get better at speaking? Good question, and I don't have an answer. Hopefully there are smarter people out there who do.

*OK, well, what standard do we use? That's a good question that I don't know the answer to. I use the standard of what I can understand while not paying complete attention (driving, working, writing this blog entry).

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