Where were you the day CNN stopped being an official news channel?
I was sitting in my Brooklyn apartment digesting a very taste bit of tenderloin I had picked up at the Jewish grocery around the corner. The rain had stopped falling and the sky was still dark and grey. A cool wind had begun to blow, heralding, at last, something more like winter heading across Manhattan.
And then I checked up on Anderson Cooper at CNN and those wacky techno geniuses over in Atlanta.
The clip shows off CNN’s new hologram technology, which allows them to display on the newsroom studio floor a reporter who is actually several hundred miles away. Very Trek-y.
Then one of the anchors snaps her fingers and “disappears” through the use of camera tricks.
I don’t want to provide a lengthy commentary. But what happens to your perception of news when journalists partake in tech gimmickry just to make us watch? They’re crossing the line. I’m showing my conservative streak, I know. But I want it straight, my news. I don’t want no foolin!
November 7th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
I had been following the election on Twitter all morning (HK time) so I hadn’t yet tuned into CNN. However, I went home for lunch to watch the Obama acceptance speech on the 40″ in my living room.
My wife and son joined me on the sofa to witness history. It was a memorable moment. We then left the TV on for a while in the background, post-speech, and sat around chatting and savoring the moment.
I glanced over a short time later to witness another television first — CNN was using special effects!
When Hollywood spends on special effects, it’s usually to make a bad movie more interesting. Does the election really need any help to be made more interesting?
Visual wizardry undermines CNN’s authority (what little it has left). If you can make a hologram appear in your studio, how can I trust that any CNN reporter is really where they claim to be?
CNN now looks a lot like the Daily Show — just not as funny nor informative.