Memorable Media Moment

Another installment of my "Stupidity in Media" theme, today courtesy of CBS. I'm watching "Sunday Morning", as I am wont to do on a Sunday morning. It's nearing the end of the broadcast and a commercial blitz is on when it's pierced by a spot of self-serving hype:

Millions of teens post information on MySpace.com,
but predators are out there too, and the danger is real.

Monday, see why more people are watching CBS Evening News with Bob Schieffer.

Now, that does truly talk about a serious issue, one which I don't mean to ridicule in any way whatsoever. It's not that I have a problem with that message at all, because there are all sorts of creeps out there that parents should be aware of, like this guy for example. Now there's a real winner to write home to Mom about, and at this point one can only wonder how the poor girl happened to meet him. I'm sure he didn't set out to kill her, maybe her death resulted from his panic after he killed the cop. The only thing for sure at this point is that she's no longer among the living, and that is sad.

So, where exactly is my problem with this commercial from CBS Evening News? Well, let's just say it's got to do with a little thing called "presentation". You know- that part of a message which impacts upon its ability to be delivered effectively. In this case, as the narration proceeds it's accompanied by a myriad of images: fingers typing on a keyboard; "myspace.com" appearing letter-by-letter in a browser's address bar; the phrase "THE DANGER IS REAL" appearing in all-caps and bold, drifting slowly upward on the screen; and then- as the last sentence pours forth, urging you to tune-in Monday night- a slow-motion image of the smiling host of CBS Evening News appears.

It's a common thing in the industry to use such an image, for some reason newscasters can't be taken seriously unless they smile in slow-motion. The problem is, Bob Schieffer has a weird, Howdy Doody marionette-esque quality to his smile, and well- IMHO, it just affected the message in such a negative way. Here, you judge for yourself:



See what I mean?

Now to be fair to Old Bob, his eyes weren't closed for the entire slow-motion clip of that unfortunate grin forming on his face. Rather, as I moved frame-by-frame through the clip on my DVR I spied that one frame that seemed to only enhance my position that this unfortunate grin on the face of the host took away from the message. I mean, look at it, age hasn't been too good to Bob. He almost looks like a giant tortoise with that neck of his. And I'm sorry- but that grin just looks euphoric to me, and rather than think of serious news about a serious issue I could only laugh because it just looked like they put some sort of twisted pedophile up on the screen.

Ewww-