There's Nothing On The Prompter

Here's a clip from the exalted CNN. Anchor Kyra Phillips had no script and no prompter.

I've been there. One of my first broadcast stories I did in college was, what some might call, a train wreck. As I recall the story was a consumer piece comparing the prices of goods on-campus versus off-campus. I bought an assortment of goods at the different stores to assess price differences. I had boxes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch (arguably the greatest cereal known to man) and candy bars. The prompter went out mid-sentence and my face could best be described as "fearful."

Lesson: Read your script and have a general understanding of the point of what you're reading. All too often we see anchors just reading the work of the producers and writers. When something messes up they are lost.