CNN awarded Vice President Al Gore six percent more of the TV screen when both he and George W. Bush were shown on a split-screen during Tuesday night’s debate, the New York Post’s Richard Johnson revealed. The other networks, he added, split their screens into equal halves.-PJIn an October 6 story noted by MRC Communications Director Liz Swasey, "Gore’s the Winner Any Way TV Ted Slices It," Johnson disclosed that Republicans "suspect CNN’s manipulation of the pooled camera feeds was done to help Gore." Here’s an excerpt from Johnson’s story:
Brian Propp, a former TV-station engineer who watched the debate on CNN International, noticed the inequity.
"Its impact was to give Gore a more commanding presence on the screen, and Bush a visually reduced impact," Propp said in an e-mail to Bush headquarters after he measured each side of the split screen with graph paper.
The split-screen scandal comes after The New York Times attacked the Republicans in a front-page story for showing the word "rats" for a fraction of a second in a health-care ad slamming bureaucrats.
"They were all upset about a tenth of a second of a subliminal ‘rats,’ but they have no problem with 90 minutes of George W. Bush being diminished," one Republican scoffed.
END Excerpt
To read the entire story, go to http://nypostonline.com/news/12429.htm
Last night and today the Fox News Channel has been illustrating the difference in screen size by showing a still shot from CNN’s debate coverage.
Thanks- I had forgotten that little tale.