I KNEW I saw something odd when watching the VP speech on CNN. Apparently they flashed black and white "X"s over his face, fast enough to almost not be noticeable, during his speech. I was going through a bunch of web news sites this morning and Drudge had an article on it. CNN management admits it but says it was just a technical difficulty. So, what in the heck could “accidentally” have big Xs flashing over the VP during his speech? Sounds more like someone in the control room decided to have some fun and make a statement.
Server was acting funny, sorry for the double post.
If you look at the text under the “X” there seems to be something written there in black that’s very hard to make out. Figure out what it says (assuming any of this really happened - my god, it’s Drudge for crying out loud) and you’ll know whether you’ve got somebody making a guerilla political statement or you simply have technical issue. Odds are rightwing blogs are going to be bouncing around trying to imply CNN’s doing this on purpose. If it really happened, and it really was a political monkeywrench, odds are far more likely it was some freelancer messing with the feed from location than someone in the control room in Atlanta.
Edit: Ah, must have been posting as the same time. So it’s just a snafu after all.
It says “Transition begins after 5 blacks are framed”.
Well, not really, but that’s the secret message. It’s the Iraq exit strategy.
Wasn’t there a movie–maybe it was The Omen–where some sort of mark appeared over the evil kid’s head in photographs, revealing that he was the son of Satan?
I’m just sayin’.
Actually, the photos in The Omen showed the ways that people were going to die. So maybe Cheney is doomed to be crushed by a giant falling X. Stay away from the set of Sesame Street, Dick!
You gotta love this. The righties are having a field day meanwhile half the Republicans in Washington are pissing themselves over the anti-culture war backlash, the bungled Katrina response, the Abramoff investigation and Iraq. But this? This is earthshaking stuff. Just like imaginary oreos.
A rival network news director asks: “When has an ‘X’ ever aired on CNN before? Who had the graphic sitting in the key signal? Who generated the ‘X’?”
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash4cnc.htm
Rival network director? [subliminal FOX] Could be any network, I reckon. [subliminal FOX]
So, since it sounds like this is one of those things where people will start slinging crap back and forth: what is the reasonable explanation of what happened? Was it just a coincidence that this thing appears more than once while Cheney was giving his speech? Or is it more likely some dumb tech in the CNN control room was playing a game? If you see a Tivo of it (I watched it on Tivo) you can see it pretty clearly. What I can’t quite make out (and I’m not at home right now) is what it says below.
Frankly, I find it more believable that somebody in the control room thought it would be a funny “statement” or jab than to believe it was just a coincidence that someone accidentally inserted the X over his face, more than once.
Well, if you believe the CNN producer then this was an error in the electronics not of an operator. My other options are believing Drudge, who while not accusing is certainly stacking his reporting to make this look incriminating and deliberate as he can, or an unnamed producer from an unnamed network [subliminal FOX] who certainly would stand to gain from any mistakes CNN makes.
That wouldn’t make sense unless he or she were wanting to be fired. It would be pretty easy to figure out who was in the control room at the time.
viral marketing for Xbox 360
Now THAT I believe! LOL! Every local and national news show this morning was showing the new XBox.
I wonder who the 5 blacks will be?
Powell is one for sure since he has been dripping out negative comments…
Eleven hours after CNN explained the technical glitch behind yesterday’s Cheney X, Matt Drudge still hasn’t posted their side of the story.
So let’s get technical: CNN says the “switcher effects recall” malfunctioned on the Atlanta B Control switcher. “The switcher was reset by engineering which cleared the problem,” the network adds.
“I’d bet anything it was the key or the fill side to an animation that accidentally hit air,” an e-mailer says. “Ask them if it was a slate to a key on a Fast Forward machine…I work in TV, that’s how we slate our animations so they match up – one frame of a big X.”
A TVSpyer adds: “Anyone who’s been in TV for 5 minutes knows that the giant X on CNN is a black key frame the technical director uses to set the black level for animated keys and a cue point for animated keys. The X is at 7% black level and the background is at 0%. This is how the TD sets his key and how the tape op knows where to cue the tape. It accidentally went on air. Big deal. No conspiracy, no scandal.”
Drudge is such a douche. I get up this morning and check out my usual sites for news and he had this running as his fucking headline. Nigga please this isn’t even newsworthy.
Drudge is one of your regular “news” sites?
I saw the CNN explanation run, sounds somewhat plausible, although I always cringe a little when the explanation is a “random computer error” that just happened without anyone pushing the button, etc.
What’s interesting: I’d love to have seen this happen to, say a speech of Hillary’s and it happen on Fox. Would everyone here be as quick to accept the exact same words the CNN folks used to explain it - random computer glitch that they can’t reproduce? Honestly.
Is Fox just as reputable or as trustworthy as CNN?