A German television reporter has apologized after a video surfaced of her smearing mud on herself ahead of a broadcast from an area devastated by floods last week.
Video footage appears to show Ms Ohlen bending down to scrape up mud and smear it on her clothes.
RTL presenter Susanna Ohlen, 39, said it was a "serious mistake" to add mud to her clothes before reporting from the areas heavily hit by deadly floods in Germany.
In an apology posted to Instagram, Ms Ohlen said she smeared the mud on herself "without thinking twice" because she had felt ashamed about reporting from the area in clean clothes.
"After I had already helped privately in the region in previous days, I was ashamed to stand in front of the camera in clean clothes, in front of the other relief workers. As a result, without thinking twice, I smeared mud on my clothes," she said according to German news site DW's English translation of her Instagram post.
"As a journalist, this should never have happened to me. As a person who takes the suffering of all those affected to heart, it has happened to me. I'm sorry."
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"The actions of our reporter clearly contradict journalistic principles and our own standards. We therefore suspended her on Monday, after we learned of it," an RTL spokeswoman said on Thursday. RTL is one of Germany's largest private broadcasters.
Floods swept across central, western and southern Germany last week, leaving at least 165 people dead and causing billions in devastating damage. The floods also raised questions over Germany's disaster management system and the future impacts of climate change.