Media / Media Bias

"X" marks the spot

On Tuesday, a large black "X" flashed across the screen while CNN was broadcasting a live speech by Vice President Dick Cheney. The "X’s" flashed twice, for a period of about 1/7 of a second each time while Cheney was criticizing critics of the Iraq war. The "X’s" covered the entire screen, which was showing a close up of Cheney’s face as he spoke.

CNN lost little time in declaring that the appearance of the "X’s" was a technical malfunction. It seems that the word "malfunction" has come into vogue since Janet Jackson’s famous (or infamous) Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction.

CNN trotted out their techie guy, technical manager Steve Alperin, who explained that the "X’s" exist to cue up graphics and are not supposed to be visible on the screen. A switching device inadvertently projected the "X" onto the screen. So sorry.

If something like that had happened in any other industry other than the media biz or more importantly, if something similar had happened under control of the White House, the media would have descended in droves in order to ascertain "the truth" about whether or not the act was deliberate. Seeking the truth is supposedly what the media does. But because this incident involved the media, the other media circled the wagons in order to protect their own.

If something like this had involved George W. Bush’s National Guard service, the mainstream media would have trotted out all kinds of experts to say what they wanted them to say. But the media has accepted CNN’s and Alperin’s explanation that what happened was simply a technical glitch. Case closed.

An example of the media’s reaction can be found in the Reuters article that was published on the day of the incident. One paragraph read,

"Word of the snafu quickly surfaced on the Internet, including still photos of the image posted by online columnist Matt Drudge, along with a story suggesting that some who say the momentary ‘X’ thought it might have been deliberate."

In other words, no one would have thought that the "X" might have been deliberate until that awful Matt Drudge suggested it and besides, he’s only one those Internet guys; you know, the ones that sit at home all day in their pajamas. The article doesn’t account for the fact that some of us who saw the picture, on the Drudge Report or elsewhere, think that CNN is somewhat less than objective, especially where the Bush administration is concerned. We didn’t need Matt Drudge to "suggest" anything.

CNN has been broadcasting 24 hours a day, seven days a week since its inception in 1980. The network is broadcast for 86,400 seconds a day and during the past year, CNN was on the air for 31.536 million seconds. Out of that total, "X’s" appeared for only 2/7 of one second. And both of these times the "X’s" just happened to be superimposed over the face of Dick Cheney. Mysteriously, these glitches never happened when Hillary Clinton or Cindy Sheehan graced the world’s television screens.

Was it deliberate? Well, what are the odds?

Arthur Weinreb is an author, columnist and Associate Editor of Canada Free Press. His work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Men's News Daily, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck and The Rant. Arthur can be reached at: aweinreb@rogers.com

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