Let's just say that Chris Schauble registered on the Richter scale

My old mrontemp blog still gets significant traffic, despite the fact that I haven't written anything there in over a year. Recently, my 2008 post In Defense of Kent Shocknek, and why Chris Schauble, Jennifer Bjorklund, and Ana Garcia should be reprimanded became very popular. It concerned my hero, Kent Shocknek, and a video from 1987:

[The video] shows David Letterman's commentary on Kent Shocknek and Christopher Nance, a former KNBC newsman and weatherman respectively, diving under the news desks during the October 1, 1987 Whittier earthquake. Letterman's studio audience was guffawing at the sight of two men diving under a desk, and Letterman himself referred to the "little special hiding place" that the two used.

Never mind the fact that you're SUPPOSED to dive under a desk during an earthquake; apparently news anchors are supposed to be stupid.

Like Chris Schauble and his co-workers were in 2008:

The earthquake begins, and the newscasters remain at their desks. Bjorklund gazes up toward the ceiling, with a complete lack of concern on her face. The newscasters note that someone off-camera (Ana Garcia) ran into the newsroom, barefoot, then ran back out again. Schauble then notes that "it could have been handled differently, shall we say" - a direct slap at Shocknek's well-known coverage from twenty years earlier.

While people characterized their performance as professional, I have a different view:

I believe that KNBC's performance yesterday was the second most unprofessional performance ever in Los Angeles local news - number one still being the time that Harvey Levin stood in a rushing stream during flood stage "just to get the picture."...

During an earthquake, which of the following courses of action is the correct one?

1. Get under a desk and protect yourself.

2. Stay sitting at your desk, gazing at the ceiling.

3. Run around barefoot

You can check any earthquake preparedness manual that you like, and I don't think they're going to advise that you gaze at the ceiling or run around barefoot during an earthquake.

As I mentioned, my 2008 post became very popular recently, but it didn't have anything to do with Kent Shocknek, and everything to do with Chris Schauble. It turns out that Schauble set off a little earthquake of his own.

In Today’s Edition of “What Were They Smokin’?!”: An anchor with NBC’s Los Angeles affiliate clearly mouthed the F-bomb during a live broadcast on Thursday morning -– and video footage of the gaffe is quickly going viral.

Chris Schauble was reporting an update about Jaycee Dugard, the California woman who was kidnapped in 1991 and held for 18 years in the backyard of a convicted rapist. The video shown, however, was of Abby Sunderland — the 16-year-old girl who went missing for several days last month while trying to sail solo around the world.

The video mixup prompted Schauble to mouth the explicit phrase...to viewers.

I don't know if Ana Garcia is still working at KNBC, but if so, did she run barefoot to the studio to shut Schauble up?