An unfortunate Mississippi morning news anchor has seemingly lost their job after uttering a well-known Snoop Dogg phrase during an on-air broadcast earlier this month.
After her March 8th broadcast on WLBT, the NBC affiliate station’s news anchor Barbie Bassett hasn’t come back to the desk. Furthermore, according to The Clarion Ledger, she is no longer part of their team and there’s been a deletion of her name from their website.
The Post contacted Bassett, WLBT and Snoop Dogg for their thoughts on the matter.
“As I am sure you can understand, WLBT is unable to comment on personnel matters,” Ted Fortenberry, the station’s regional vice president and general manager stated.
During a discourse about Snoop Dogg’s most up-to-date vino addition to his Cali wine collection, an embarrassing blunder was made.
When the prospect of a Snoop Dogg collaboration with a newsroom journalist was presented, Bassett exclaimed, “Fo shizzle, my nizzle.”
The word “Nizzle” is a common stand-in for the N-word, and Bassett – who is white – tweeted it in 2011.
This isn’t the initial instance of Bassett’s remarks getting her into difficulty. She has a noteworthy career milestone under her belt, being WLBT’s first-ever chief meteorologist.
In October of 2022, the Mississippi native issued an apology after invoking a black reporter’s “grandmammy” during his broadcast.
“Though not intentional, I now understand how my comment was both insensitive and hurtful. I have apologized to Carmen Poe,” Bassett said.
“Now, I would like to apologize to you. That is not the heart of who I am. And for that, I humbly ask for your forgiveness and I apologize to everyone I have offended.”
She added: “I will learn from this and participate in training so I can better understand our history and our people. I can’t mend the hurt my comment caused. I pray you’ll forgive me and that you’ll extend grace through this awful mistake.”
Charlamagne tha God recently came to her defense on the radio after she made a glaring mistake.
“I don’t think she should have been fired for that,” he said on “The Breakfast Club.”
“She might not even know what ‘nizzle’ means, yo. Come on, like stop. That’s not a reason to fire that woman.”
While some social media users have come to Bassett’s aid, others argue that it is not suitable for a Caucasian woman to make such a statement.
In 1993, Bassett graduated from Mississippi College with a degree in hand and went on to receive her Master of Science at Mississippi State University, majoring in broadcast meteorology – all documented within her online resume.
Gov. Haley Barbour accurately noted in 2010 that “In many ways, Barbie Bassett’s story is Mississippi’s story.” she is the proud mother of three children: Grace, Will Christian, and Lilly Faith.
“It’s about faith and perseverance dealing with hardships we don’t always understand at the time and finding the answers by working through the problems.”
