I’m Sorry, Mika’s Just Out

Live television has its drawbacks, but in the world of the rolling news cycle, live is how it usually has to be. So when someone has a bout of what is known in the UK as “corpsing”, it can’t be edited out. And if it’s one of the two presenters, who just happens to sit right next to the co-presenter, there’s no cutting away.

So when Mika Brzezinski, co-host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, had an inadvertent reaction to a spoof piece on GOP favourite “Dick” Cheney on yesterday’s edition of the show, it was not only live, but complete: co-presenter Joe Scarborough sits next to Mika, with the guests (including nonplussed looking “Last Word” host Lawrence O’Donnell) around the same table.

How do we not get this kind of thing in the UK? Maybe it’s that legendary BBC reserve, or Adrian Chiles being relentlessly downbeat.

[Morning Joe, apropos of nothing much, was the morning show Nick Clegg appeared on during a recent Stateside trip. Joe and Mika spared him any unscripted moments]