Who can resist this Drudge story in all its naked truth? The MSM has tilted so far left they’ve fallen overboard.
This screen capture provided by Matt Drudge ought to be spread far and wide across the blogosphere. While Miz Mapes blathers on about those “forgeries” from President Bush’s National Guard days, let’s all take a good hard look at CNN’s bizarre silent message.
Eason Jordan’s Icarus-like fall from the sky taught these people nothing. Nothing at all.What’s next, CNN? Bulls’eye targets on the face of the Secretary of State? Or are you saving those for bigger game?
The MSM is not only biased, it’s so far out there as to have lost its already tenuous grasp on reality.
Let’s tiptoe away…this is too creepy for words.
You probably should pull in your horns, Dymphna. This one is being called a true technical goof, not sabotage, on Michelle Malkin’s website. There are plenty of examples of media bias, but this is probably not one.
Hm, I know they are calling it a technical glitch… But technical glitches can occur when people accidentaly air something they didn’t mean to air also.
As for not being an example of media bias, well, I’m sure it wasn’t meant to be a PUBLIC example. Like the staffers on the Hill never meant that “Special Olympics” picture of W to be made public.
Maybe we should count ourselves lucky for the reminder that they didn’t mean to give.
Well said airforcewife! The fact that it exists speaks volumes.
zwergele–
I’m not the paranoid type except when it comes to the MSM. Too many decades of “true technical goofs” that somehow never happen to the politicians the MSM favors…
…sorry, but I simply don’t believe them. Someone with better equipment than I –the political teen, I believe — had the video on just as I went to bed last night. So “the x marks the spot” went on for a while.
…and Michelle Malkin is welcome to diverge from my belief; that’s okay. It doesn’t change my mind that some idjit was having a bit o’ fun…
…who are you going to believe, CNN or your lying eyes?
This was one of those “oops, I did it accidentally on purpose”, moments.
Fans of cult TV may remember the episode of ‘The Prisoner’, the 60s spy show starring Patrick MacGoohan, which featured the hypnotism of TV viewers by means of flashing images. This technique is called ‘stroboscopy’; briefly it involves the projection at speeds too fast to be cognitively ‘seen’ of alternate images into a TV broadcast. This is thought to ‘condition’ the viewer into certain points of view or moods of receptivity. Scandals over the use of such techniques have erupted with regularity; the shocking images discovered in ‘The Exorcist’, for instance, when it was first released on VHS (the entire run had to be recalled and re-edited), or the images in the smoke of Disney’s ‘Lion King’.
Those who desire a thorough explanation of how stroboscopy works should read the classic ‘Subliminal Seduction’ by Wilson Bryan Key; despite the ‘debunking’ of his work at sites like ‘The Straight Dope’, I know these techniques exist because I have used them for decades and been well paid for it. Anyone trained in traditional engraving or press printing will first be set to work etching certain words and images into the plates. My first experience with TV embedding came in my teens; late one night I was watching a Nixon political ad on TV when the picture froze. Half-caught in the video lines was a subliminal photograph of a naked white woman in her bed opening her mouth to scream, while the profile of a menacing black man loomed in the doorway. The network, pressed for an explanation later in the week, released a statement saying that ‘engineers’ had been passing ‘pornographic films’ back and forth by satellite and would be fired.
I have a feeling that some ‘engineer’ will be blamed and fired for the X that mysteriously appeared over Vice President Cheney’s face yesterday on CNN (http://drudgereport.com/flash3cnc.htm).
Update:
The first thing the industry always does is to have a ‘longtime industry veteran’ deny that subs exist. Here he is doing just that: http://michellemalkin.com/archives/003970.htm
The second thing they do is find an engineer to fire. Here is the start of that process: http://drudgereport.com/flash4cnc.htm
Attempts to depict this entirely as a ‘glitch’ fail to explain that no one in video production uses flashing X’s for ‘raw feed’. Some software applications do have X’s to denote missing file references (I know; I edit film), but none use that font. My guess is the X was a marker for some other insert. Maybe a screaming naked white woman…
Do ‘subs’ work? You bet. Certain techniques are nearly as old as Gutenberg’s press. Ever find yourself unaccountably excited by one car and left cold by another, nearly identical one? Ever suddenly start salivating even though you just ate? Ever fall in love with the girl–or the guy–on the magazine cover? Generally speaking, subliminal reinforcement is just that–reinforcement of our natural urges, consumer tastes, and political prejudices.
But a lifetime of exposure to it, like Prozac, has never been studied…
A frequent accusation I hear from young people, when I am so foolish to mention that, though a social liberal, I support the Iraq war, is that I’m ‘brainwashed by propaganda’. The sad truth is far more likely just the opposite; it wasn’t Fox crudely doing this–it was CNN.
The mass media are in fact guilty of many distortions and dirty tricks, of which the worst are exclusionary policies that prevent genuine news from being widely reported. That is where media critics should focus their attention: the “gatekeeper” function of the editors and reporters is the crux of the matter.
Propaganda — including the employment of slogans such as “Bush lied, people died” — begins with the exclusion of news. The real danger presented by bias in the media is here; chasing ghosts does not address the danger.
The focus of attention on CNN’s X is a serious mistake. This childish, stupid video prank, if it was a prank and not a true glitch without motive, has provoked people who are quite properly sick of media bias and deceit. Their reaction has been embarrassingly excessive.
If you want to be taken seriously, be critical but not cynical; be rational and eschew the slightest paranoia; consider the gravity of the offense and do not exaggerate its impact; and finally, do NOT ape Mad Mary Mapes, who remains to this day unable to grasp the not-so-technical reasons why her memos are such obvious fakes.
The pros are telling us this was nothing. They may be wrong. But really now, who cares? This X is, at its worst, the equivalent of a graffito scrawled on a billboard by a drooling moron. Wise folks don’t bother even snorting at the obvious stupidity as they breeze on past. Yet you slam on the brakes, get out and try to stop all the other traffic so you can denounce the offense. Sheeeesh!
I know that when I argue with a fool, the fool is similarly engaged. That’s why I’m arguing with you: you are not fools, you have just let anger distort your sense of perspective. Calm down and reconsider this.
You are good people who are discrediting yourselves because you have had more than enough abuse from indecent, elitist rascals. An emotional over-reaction is understandable, but ultimately counterproductive. Don’t harm your just cause and undermine your credibility.
Admit that the CNN X is very likely just a goof; even if it isn’t, this is a trivial and silly issue. The wise will ignore it.
There are genuinely dangerous claims and insane opinions to fisk, so let’s stop fantasizing about sci-fi subliminal manipulation (which has indeed been debunked because it does not work!). Western Civilization needs all the rational, calm and determined help it can get.