Watch: News Anchor 'Swallows' Fly During Live Telecast

News anchors are required to stay composed in all circumstances while they are on live TV. A video showing a news anchor swallowing a fly has now surfaced online. Instead of pausing, she keeps reading the news for the sake of “professionalism”. Nexta, a Belarusian media outlet, shared this clip on X (formerly Twitter) and identified the anchor as Vanessa Welch, who works for Boston 25 News.

The clip shows the insect first falling on her lower lashes and then going right into her mouth. The video was captioned, “On Boston25, the news anchor demonstrated true journalistic professionalism: she swallowed a fly and continued to broadcast as if nothing had happened.”

The video has gathered over 1 lakh views, since it was posted on May 29. While many lauded Welch for staying composed, others argued that news anchors should be able to excuse themselves instead of keeping up their appearance at the cost of their health.

An X user commented, “Very professional and she really had no reaction or fear at all.. If there were more people, they definitely wouldn’t have been able to do what she did. Probably her memorable moment.”

Another person wrote, “I’d much rather have my news interrupted than for someone to feel like they have to swallow a fly in order to perform adequately.”

Someone else argued, “Professional has become a dirty word, not at all associated with ‘GOOD work ethics’ & this anchor’s actions are just on par with that. Keeping ‘the show’ going at any expense, doesn’t represent professionalism.”

An X user remarked, “Poor woman! That is the deontology of this profession! Good and bad things together!”

This is not the first time that a news anchor has gone viral for swallowing a fly while on air. Back in 2022, Farah Nasser, an anchor with Canada’s Global News, was reporting on the catastrophic flooding in Pakistan when a fly entered her mouth. Nasser stopped for a second, gulped the fly and then continued with the news.

Nasser herself shared this clip and wrote, “Sharing because we all need a laugh these days. Turns out it’s not just Doug Ford, I swallowed a fly on air today. (Very much a first world problem given the story I’m introducing).”