On Mon, Feb 24, 2003 at 02:43:37PM -0800, Tim May wrote:And I notice that hanging on the wall to the right in the photo is the "New York Times -- Baghdad Bureau" photo. "All the news that's fit to simulate."
Heh. I went on CNN Headline News last week around 7:20 am ET. They put me in a studio I hadn't been in before, with a remote-controlled camera and a photo of the monuments in the background. After my brief segment was over, a camera operator came in and rolled down the background a few inches -- apparently it hadn't been adjusted correctly and all you could see was the sky. They have another background (a continuous loop, on rollers) for daytime, night, etc. Will try to remember to take a photo the next time I'm there.
Those kinds of backgrounds are, I think, quite reasonable. They're very obviously just backdrops, as the lights don't change, lights at night don't flicker, clouds don't move, etc.
CNBC uses them for San Francisco backdrops...usually the Golden Gate Bridge, or the Transamerica Pyramid, or the Bay Bridge. And they're even clever enough to usually have an "overcast" shot when the day is overcast, a "clear and sunny" shot as appropriate, and (less often for programming reasons) night shots.
I think 99% of the viewers understand that it's just a visual cue to remind those not hearing or reading the intro about where the interviewee is located.
Putting up fake newsrooms is quite another matter, though. I don't recall seeing this static shot of the "New York Times-Washington Bureau" newsroom. It seems like a silly thing to do, to have a photo of a newsroom with nobody in it.
On the backdrops themselves, I'm surprised they're not using blue screen technology. The weather reporters have it, though with a sometimes visible "edge" (which is distracting).
Since the War on (Some) Terrorists is the Wag the Dog War, we may soon be seeing actual faked war footage.
(The best news has been that 100 or so American reporters have "signed on" to wear actual uniforms, to be assigned to combat units, and to participate in battles if need be. This I count as "good news" because it may mean that captured reporters are not held-and-released the way Bob Simon, for example, was in Iraq. This time they may face the same fate other captured enemy face. And it erases any misconceptions that the unquestioning press is actually independent of the military-industrial-media complex. "Fox News -- Fair AND Balanced!")
--Tim May
"Ben Franklin warned us that those who would trade liberty for a little bit of temporary security deserve neither. This is the path we are now racing down, with American flags fluttering."-- Tim May, on events following 9/11/2001
