Entertainment

Newsreader dons cat filter on air after lawyer’s viral Zoom mishap

Reeta Chakrabarti sounded exasperated with her colleagues as she read a story on Wednesday afternoon.
Reeta Chakrabarti sounded exasperated with her colleagues as she read a story on Wednesday afternoon. Reeta Chakrabarti sounded exasperated with her colleagues as she read a story on Wednesday afternoon.

A BBC newsreader has donned a cat filter on air during a bulletin.

The filter was applied on Reeta Chakrabarti following a report on the story of a Texas lawyer who went viral for accidentally appearing as a cat in a virtual court hearing.

Appearing exasperated with her colleagues, Chakrabarti said: “Well, they said they would do this to me and they have.

“It was inevitable I suppose, and it will give you paws for thought.”

Lawyer Rod Ponton went viral on Tuesday for struggling to remove a cat filter on Zoom, while Judge Roy Ferguson attempted to help him.

After initially feeling concerned about the reaction to the video, Mr Ponton said he has now embraced becoming an internet sensation.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “As it turns out, in hindsight it’s provided a good laugh, I think, for the country.

“I think anybody that’s ever struggled with a computer, with Zoom, can recognise that those kinds of things can happen and it certainly did happen to me.”

A repost of the video on Twitter now has more than 28 million views.

Mr Ferguson said what happened was a “simple mistake that could happen to any one of us”, and he did not wish for people to “poke fun” at the lawyer for the mishap.

“It goes hand-in-hand with the legal community’s effort to continue representing their clients in these challenging times,” he added.