It's not the "X" that was annoying as much as the "Family Feud"-style buzzing noise that went with it every time he finished a sentence.

I question the timing.

Isn't there a second recent incident involving CNN where some one off screen said something negative while a story aired? Unless the other incident was truly non-malicious, CNN shd have nipped this crap in the bud immediately. Then again, didn't CNN give a negative label to a photo posted to their website during the campaign? Boy, this stuff is adding up. Probably not worse than all the other news media but definitely more juvenile.

I'm at my wits' end... musta been a short trip!

Jeez.....get real lives, will you? Is this the biggest thing you can find to complain about? Try broadening your scope a little.
If that doesn't work, then maybe you can call 1-800-waaaaah and see if anyone there gives a damn.

"Then again, didn't CNN give a negative label to a photo posted to their website during the campaign?"

I think that was Yahoo! News, with an AP photo. The file name was "idiot." If I recall correctly. But you know, CNN, Yahoo!, the Saudis, the international Zionist cabal ... it's all the same ball of wax.

jlg,
Yeah, it is a small thing to get upset about. But no one's saying this 'X' business is editorial policy at CNN.
I'm (mostly) sure this was probably a stupid prank by a low-level person. But what does this say about CNN? What other stupid things have gone on that haven't been so obvious?
Where are the grownups?

P.S. I called that number you gave, and your mom answered.

Sorry, cheap shot.

......and did my mommy tell you that if you engage in a war with half of the people who live in the same country you live in that you shouldn't be too surprised or shocked when they shoot back?
I watch both sides of all this crap from my own chair, and let me tell you -- while you're fighting, the real enemy is moving in. "Divide and Conquer" is one of the oldest tricks in warfare, but apparently millions of people in America are still stupid enough to fall for it.

IMHO, the Frankens and the Limbaughs and the Sterns and the Hannitys in our society are doing our country more harm than did the assholes who flew those planes into the WTC on 9/11. At least the 9/11 bombers brought us together for awhile, even if it was at a hideous price.

Our enemies watch us tear each other's throats out, and they sit back and smirk and wait.........we're doing all of their work for them, and not one of them has to die in the process.

Think I'm kidding? Just wait.

Just wait.

No, she didn't mention that.

Actually, that's a good point. Maybe that's why Cheney and them seem to laugh it off rather than make an issue. Either they have to appear to be above it all, or they can't be bothered with the small stuff.
I guess if you take it as given that CNN and others like them hate the administration, none of this is a big deal. My point is that some people remain unconvinced, though I doubt many of them read this blog.

This was up for 1/15 of a second? That's 2 frames of video. I highly doubt this was intentional or malicious.

I don't know if CNN does any preproduction through it's control room. Most of that stuff is done w/nonlinear editors nowdays, but I can easily see how this X might have been stored as a key signal somewhere in the switcher for this purpose.

All kinds of weird stuff can hit air during a live broadcast. I'm as suspicious of CNN as anyone, but I don't think this one is something to get worked up about.

Am I the only one asking "what the fuck?" after reading jlg's post?

Because, you know, what the fuck?

jlg17,

Actually, I think you're mommy might have said something like that, but it was hard to hear her with my dirty sweaty balls all stuffed in her mouth. It sounded something like "mmmphh mmbbff pfffbthh Bush lied mmbbbllbbffph."

Same reaction, Ed. No frikkin' idea.

I highly doubt this was intentional or malicious.

Michelle Malkin has several reasonably informed commenters and tons of links, with it looking like 2:1 in favor of it probably being intentional.

Thank you for brains instead of flame.

I kid you not about the division in the country and what it will lead to if itkeeps growing. Actually, I'm not sure that it's not already too late, but I hope it isn't.

As far as subliminal techniques go, let me tell you that if CNN or any other TV station or movie theater wanted to slip visual messages to you, you would never know it.

I saw this technique demonstrated in front of a small gathering in Hollywood before its use as a method of advertising was outlawed about 30 years ago. The speed of the "flash" at that time was 1/60th of a second, and none of the test subjects EVER hit their buttons when the words came on the screen. During that test the word was only "Coke", but I remember how unnerved I was that someone would even propose such a technique for use on American citizens. Memories of the movie "The Manchurian Candidate" came to mind, believe me.

My point is this: if anyone wants to play with your head, and they are really serious about doing so, they will do so, and you will not likely find our about it unless someone goes public with what he or she knows.

Last Friday, I forayed into dummie territory to read and gloat. They were going on and on about a news conference aired on CNN and someone calling a Bush official something nasty. I can't remember all the details and I'm not going back to get them.

Also, the incident I was thinking of was a photo of a young girl with her pigtails forming a “W.” It was cute and they gave it a negative title until the freepers discovered it.

Thank you for brains instead of flame.

Hey, flaming = love around here.

We're all about the love.

Do you think subliminal messages are really that effective, though?

I have to emphasize what the "rival" newsman said.

Has this EVER happened before? Uhm, no.

If this was truly a bug, CNN, with 24 hrs of programming per day over however many years, most certainly would have encountered this "bug" before. Some other NETWORK should have encountered this bug too.

That the only time it has EVER happened is during a speech by a Republican Vice President defending the Iraq war, and that the mysterios symbol just happens to be a univerally accepted symbol for "WRONG" is far too coincedental.

Intentially done by CNN management? No.

Intentionally done by a control room prankster because he knows with the overly leftward bias of the organization he'll be treated with kid gloves by mangaement and lauded by his co-workers? Absolutely.

I can't prove that they are or aren't, but plenty of people in the advertising industry believe that they are.

Whereas high-speed visual information was outlawed as a method of advertising in theaters, subliminal low-level audio messaging/advertising is in use all over America today in large stores, and hiding images in adverstising photos and graphics is also supposed to be far more common than anyone thinks.

I never did believe the crap about satanic messages being recorded backwards and inserted into a track on commercially available music because none of the examples that I ever heard ever sounded like anything at all to me except that sound that ace said my mom was making.

A lot of people completely spun out over that scare, however, and whereas I am sure that they all still believe that their intuition was correct -- and I will not say that it wan't -- they were never able to come up with the proof required to make their cases.

But, as I said, if someone wants to slip an image to you, it is entirely possible for them to do so without you even suspecting it. What your subconscious mind can detect is another matter, however.

Gotta work. Later.

*snort* UNREPRODUCIBLE computer error?

I've been in the business 25 years. This is the most preposterous crock of male bovine fecal matter I've ever heard.

Do they think we're all drooling morons?

Michelle Malkin has several reasonably informed commenters and tons of links, with it looking like 2:1 in favor of it probably being intentional.

I don't care what they day. I have 11 years in the business. This was almost definitely not intentional.

I like Sean's theory. Probably they were goofing around in the control room and "accidentally" switched the feeds, or faded a graphic on the main image. Predictably childish behavior from these clowns. Revealing but not earth shaking. Because lets be honest, how many people really saw it anyway?

I don't care what they day. I have 11 years in the business. This was almost definitely not intentional.

You're probably right.

. Predictably childish behavior from these clowns.

Engineering and operational staff tend to lean conservative, not liberal.

Producers/writers/reporters don't touch video switchers, and have little to no idea how to operate anything in a control room other than the software that runs the newsgathering system and the IFB and phone lines.

Sorry, but reading CNN "explanation", I can't help but hear Jon Lovitz's character Tommy Flannigan's voice in my head.

"Uh, yeah, it was a computer bug. Yeah, that's the ticket. The computer that was operated by my wife, uh Morgan Fairchild, whom I've seen naked."

Engineering and operational staff tend to lean conservative, not liberal.

That's a particularly ill-informed thing to say. I work in IT for a securities firm. You'd THINK these guys would be conservative.

In reality, however, they're all bleeding heart, rabid anti-Bushies who would die for Michael Moore, but not this God-awful country.

You know what you do when you ASS-U-ME, don't you Warden?

Sean, how 'bout you fuck off and read all of my posts first? I was speaking specifically about broadcast television.

Eleven years in the television broadcast industry doesn't make my post ill-informed. Quite the opposite. But I guess your experience in a securities firm trumps that knowledge, though.

>I highly doubt this was intentional or malicious. [etc...]

It seems to me this is nothing more than a prak played by someone on the staff. The real wheels at cnn don't need to stoop to such tomfoolery to further their agenda.

There's no shortage of examples of the technicians who create the output goofing with it a little.
Crawls, captions, alt text on website photos, whatever.
Things that geeks appreciate. Like lenny and squiggy taking over the superbowl feed in Used Cars. Granted it was the VP and all, but still.

You'd think CNN could just dig the guy up instead taking the CBS approach to the story

I remember a couple of years ago a New Zealand television network ran a graphic at the bottom of the screen during the news that read "George W. Bush Professional Fascist".

It was just an error. Honest.

A big X over BILL CLINTONS and AL GORES faces the two Xes