CNN needs a copy editor to check over its onscreen labels. Before they go, y’know, onscreen:
The man in the picture, of course, is David Gergen, CNN’s senior political analyst and who served as an adviser to presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. I got to meet him once when I was enjoying a fellowship at Duke University, back in 1996. He was teaching there at the time.
In the TV biz, those little labels are called “supers.” There’s a variety of reasons this can happen. But the most common one is: TV news operations have cut way back their technical staff. So this sort of thing falls though the gaps.
An expert wrote us a while back and explained all. It’s fascinating reading. Check it out here.
That’s not the first time we’ve seen something like this on CNN. Check out this graphic:
Ew.
And Fox News has screwed up so many graphics that I believe I could start an entire blog, just documenting them. Get the idea here and here.
Don’t even get me started on ESPN. Those guys have gotten really sloppy. I have a couple of new ones to post but don’t want to bore my blog readers with nothing but all errors, all day.
Thanks to Spencer Holladay, a team leader at Gannett’s Louisville Design Studio, for the tip.
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You know who else needs a copy editor?
Local TV news operations. Chicago’s WMAQ-TV in particular. And Harrisburg’s Fox43 TV news. And Local 15 News in Mobile, Ala. And WBAL-TV in Baltimore. And Fox2Now in St. Louis. And KTLA channel 5 in Los Angeles. And Charlotte’s WBTV. And KXAN-TV of Austin. And Huntsville’s WAFF-TV. And other local TV news operations. And CBS local media. And the web operation for DC101 radio. And the Huffington Post. And CNN and CNN Money and CNN mobile and Fox News (and Fox News again)(and Fox News yet again)(and again!)(and again!)(and yet again!) and ABC News and the BBC and German news channel N24. And Fairfax media of New Zealand. And Dagsrevyen, the evening news broadcast of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corp. And Martha Stewart’s TV operation. And the Disney Channel. And creators of mobile apps. And Yahoo News. And Google News’ ‘bots. And Baseball jersey manufacturers. And Georgetown University. And Kansas State University. And the University of Iowa. And the New York Jets, the Minnesota Vikings, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Washington Nationals (boy, do they need a copy editor). And the National Hockey League. And ESPN (and ESPN again)(and yet again)(and yet again)(and three more times!)(and yet again) and Fox Sports (and Fox Sports again). And college athletic department ticket offices. And the Virginia general assembly. And college alumni magazines. And pharmacies. And the makers of Sudafed. And Borders bookstore. And the U.S. Postal Service. And government agencies and political candidates. And Tea Party candidates. And the White House. And the Vice President. And city and county Boards of Elections. Both the state of Pennsylvania and its department of transportation. And Pittsburgh skywriters. And road paving contractors in Durham, N.C. and in New York City. And the city of Norfolk, Va. And the Ohio Dept. of Transportation. And South African traffic cops. And gas stations. And billboard companies. And bumper sticker manufacturers. And sign painters. And Home Depot and manufacturers of “hoodies.†And T-shirt designers. And more T-shirt designers. And Old Navy. And rubber stamp designers. And glass etchers. And Starbucks. And restaurants, breakfast joints, Chinese restaurants and cake decorators. And more cake decorators. And drive-in movie theater managers. And romance novelists. And South Africa’s New Age and Sunday Independent newspapers. And Dublin’s Sunday Business Post. And the Echo of Gloucestershire, England. And the South China Morning Post. And the Washington Post (Hey! Another repeat offender!), the Post‘s Express tab (Hey! Yet another repeat offender!), the Washington Examiner, the New York Times (Wow! Yet another repeat offender!)(Hey! A third offense!), the New York Post, Wall Street Journal Europe, Newsday, USA Today, the Chicago Sun-Times (And yet another!), the Daily Herald of Arlington Heights, Ill., the Rochester, N.Y., Democrat & Chronicle, the Daily Mail of London, the Seattle Times, the weekly Manila Mail of San Francisco, the Miami Herald (and again!), the Portland Oregonian, the Durham, N.C., Herald-Sun, the Chapel Hill, N.C., News, the Missoula, Mont., Missoulian, the Duluth, Minn., News Tribune, the Times-Record of Denton, Md., the News-Herald of Willoughby, Ohio, the Amarillo (Texas) Globe News, the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Waynesboro News Virginian, the Virginian-Pilot, the Des Moines Register, the Green Bay Press-Gazette, Gannett’s N.Y. Central Media hub, the Greenville (S.C.) News, the Daily Herald of Provo, Utah, the Deseret News of Salt Lake City, the Salt Lake Tribune, the Carbondale, Ill., Southern Illinoisian, the Lakeland (Fla.) Ledger (Hey! Yet another repeat offender!) and the Canarsie Courier of New York City. And the Associated Press. And Mann’s Jeweler’s Accent magazine. And Investment News magazine. And Time magazine.
