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- If you were watching the "CBS Evening News"
broadcast live from Times Square on New Year's Eve, you might have seen
a billboard advertising CBS News out in the square behind Dan Rather. You
might have looked at the well-placed billboard and wondered just exactly
how it was that CBS was able to place its ad so fortuitously.
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- The truth is, it didn't. The billboard and the advertisement
for CBS did not exist. The image was digitally imported onto the live CBS
broadcast and used to obliterate real objects, the NBC Astrovision underneath
the New Year's ball and a Budweiser ad.
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- Inserting digital images has become increasingly common
in sports and entertainment programming -- usually to insert advertising
and corporate logos and first down markers in football -- but has generally
been considered out of line on news shows, a type of programming in which
the assumption of reality is considered sacrosanct and not informing viewers
is considered a breach of journalistic guidelines. CBS contends such practices
do not cross ethical boundaries.
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- CBS News is using the technology as part of a broad agreement
the network signed last year with a technology company, Princeton Video
Image, to provide branding services for a variety of CBS programs. The
technology has been used regularly on "The Early Show" and the
news magazine "48 Hours" and was used on the Evening News on
Dec. 30 and 31, according to CBS news executives.
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- "The Early Show" has been using it almost every
day since the show's debut on Nov. 1.
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- News show logos that appear real are being inserted on
the sides of structures, like the General Motors building, on the back
of a horse-drawn carriage in Central Park, in the fountain outside the
Plaza Hotel and, yesterday, in the center of Wollman Rink.
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- In some instances, the logo clearly resembles a large
billboard advertising CBS News.
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- "We were looking for some way to brand the neighborhood
with the CBS logo," said Steve Friedman, the executive producer of
"The Early Show" who is entrusted with bringing the program,
in which CBS invested at least $30 million, up in the ratings from its
current No. 3 spot. "It's a great way to do things without ruining
the neighborhood. Every day we have a different way of using it, whether
it's logos or outlines. And we haven't even scratched the surface of its
uses yet."
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- Mr. Friedman said that the practice did not press the
boundaries of ethical guidelines for CBS News.
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- "It does not distort the content of the news,"
he said, and compared the use of the technology with earlier visual innovations.
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- "I remember the hue and cry when people started
to use graphics on news."
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- The CBS News deal with Princeton Video Image was reported
in the Jan. 3 issue of the trade magazine Broadcasting & Cable.
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- Eric Shapiro, the director of the "CBS Evening News"
and CBS News Special Events, said he might use the technology again on
"Evening News" and that the news division examines each case
individually before putting the virtual logos on the air. "The technique,
I find, works best if you put it someplace where there is intended to be
something," he said. "If it feels that it is not correct to use
it, then we obviously won't use it."
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- Mr. Rather, he said, knew about the use of the virtual
technology during the broadcast and did not protest the practice.
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- "But he did not know in advance," Mr. Shapiro
said. "These are not things he needs to worry about. He spends most
of his time worrying about the content of the broadcast. But as a production
technique he was most certainly aware that it was happening around him."
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- Mr. Rather did not return a phone call seeking comment
last night. Bryant Gumbel and Jane Clayson, anchors of "The Early
Show," could not be reached for comment.
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- Harry Jessell, the editor of Broadcasting & Cable
magazine, said the practice alarmed him.
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- "I think it does raise some ethical questions for
CBS," he said. "You would think that a TV news organization would
not tamper with video, especially live video. Viewers should be able to
rely on the fact that what they are seeing is actually there."
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- Network news has flirted with similar technological issues
once before. In 1994, the use of a fake backdrop caused an outcry in 1994
when the ABC journalist Cokie Roberts appeared in front of a picture of
Capitol Hill. Peter Jennings, the ABC News anchor, introduced a report
from Ms. Roberts, and said that she was reporting from Capitol Hill; Ms.
Roberts, wearing a coat, appeared in front of what looked like the Capitol.
But without the knowledge of network viewers or even Mr. Jennings, Ms.
Roberts was actually inside the ABC News Washington bureau with a photographic
image of the Capitol projected behind her. Ms. Roberts and Rick Kaplan,
then the executive producer of "World News Tonight" and now the
president of CNN, were both reprimanded and the network apologized on the
air.
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- Spokesmen for NBC, ABC and Fox said their news units
did not use such digital technology on news broadcasts. Christa Robinson,
a spokeswoman for CNN, said she knew of no instance of the technology's
use.
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- So even when a camera is showing a live view of an area,
SEE-BS can still literally COVER-UP whatever is going on with digitally-inserted
overlays.
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- When video labeled 'live news' is NO LONGER REAL, its
time that CBS lose their FCC BROADCASTING LICENSE.
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