It is rare that a news anchor foregoes the customary veneer of adequacy and neutrality. That WNBC/Ch. 4 anchor Sue Simmons should inadvertently yell an expletive on-air was therefore a great surprise to viewers Monday night.

Veteran news anchor Sue Simmons, who has been working at WNBC since 1980, let slip an offensive term Monday during a live news tease at about 10:30 p.m. Off camera, she yelled, “What the f- are you doing?”

Simmons apologized during the 11 p.m. broadcast, saying, “We need to acknowledge an unfortunate mistake that I made in one of the teases we bring to you before this program. While we were live just after 10 o'clock, I said a word that many people find offensive. I am truly sorry. It was a mistake on my part, and I sincerely apologize.”

Simmons appeared Tuesday on the station’s 5 p.m. newscast, as scheduled. The station has not said whether Simmons would be disciplined for her on-air gaffe. We can guess though that there are ample discussions going on at Ch. 4.

News director Vicki Burns canceled a planned trip to the station’s New Jersey bureau to deal with the situation, unnamed sources told the New York Daily News. Tuesday, a station spokesperson would only say, “We do not comment on personnel issues.”

It has been said that Simmons and her on-air partner Chuck Scarborough were under the impression that the segment was being taped and that editing was possible.

Simmons may nevertheless face consequences. Viewers were not happy with the incident and it is safe to guess station officials are not happy with the audience’s disgruntlement. In the thirty minutes following Simmons’ blunder, some 100 calls were made to WNBC, per the Daily News. Many were complaints.

A similar incident that comes to one’s mind is that of television reporter Arthur Chi’en, who in 2005 used an obscene term to respond to hecklers while on-air. WCBS-TV subsequently fired him, a move some considered extreme at the time.