"Where are the fckin balloons!" why else beside sabotage would CNN

[henslee]

stay on that hot mike picking up the event coordinator freaking out?

[achtung_circus]

1. Incompetence and/or public stupidity nt.

[Boomer]

2. Sabotage immediately crossed my mind

The coordinator's voice was heard over and over and over again, giving mind-numbing directions, obviously not someone who should be live. But CNN didn't cut the audio until he unleashed an obscenity, THEN they were quick to react. You can't tell me that wasn't deliberate.

[Nimzo Indian]

3. I can tell you....

as a television professional who has done dozens of live shows, that was most likely deliberate. Any good audio tech knows what is going out live, and what is in house chatter. If it were a mistake, you would have heard 3-5 seconds of it at most.

F***in' CNN.

[lakeguy]

4. complete bullshit!

if this doesn't prove what a problem we have with big media i don't know what does. kerry made a great speech and they found a way to f* it up anyway! you can't tell me they couldn't have cut the guy's mic in less than 5 seconds.

[yvr girl]

5. you're so right

I can't imagine that chatter going out so long unless it was deliberate. I hope that they get fined.

[rlev1223]

6. Chill

CNN certainly was aware that the mike was live and that there was a good possibility that leaving it on would lead to an exciting on-air profanity..but who the fuck cares?

The speech was timed and presented perfectly for the networks...sometimes Kerry cut applause short and seemed to be rushing but he got the whole thing in just before 11 PM EDT. The network audience dwarfs both CNN and FOX and is where most newbies watch. For most of them - and this seems hard to believe after 18 months of a campaign - this is the first time they will even start to form an opinion and it went fine.

[Tashi]

7. balloons

There's lot more at stake than balloons kiddy.

Great speech.

The balloons where dropped later and all of them bio-degradeable, thast's good start for the environment.

[zulchzulu]

8. The Chump Neocon Network strikes again!

Unprofessional twerps. It only made them look and sound like puffed-up pruneheads again.

I like my TV without the roaches, worms and dirt in the salad. I watch CSPAN.

[wegieman]

9. Which post has cnn's phone # again?

I know it won't help but I have to yell at someone about this.
It's a sad day when you get fairer coverage on fox than cnn.

[DeepModem Mom]

10. CNN's viewer-comment line: 404-827-0234

Welcome to DU, wegieman!

[wegieman]

11. thanks!

[TexasSissy]

12. I thought it was kinda funny, actually. The guy was nice for a long

while, until finally, when the baloons never would come down, he finally said, "What the fuck are you guys doin' up there?" He wasn't really ugly about it, and he didn't yell. I could relate and probably would've cussed long before he did. It was a real moment about the sorts of technical things that can happen at conventions.

I thought the convention was expertly choreographed and put together. They did a fine job.

[yellowcanine]

17. Too bad he didn't say , "What the cheney are you guys doing?"

.

[cheezus]

13. don't they have a tape delay for this very sort of thing?

or did they just assume the DNC would be boobie-free?

[DrFunkenstein]

15. When Edwards Ripped Kerry's Shirt Off, I Just Told The Kids To Look Away

Who knew Kerry wore a nipple ring?

[k in IA]

14. I was watching MSNBC but when I read the very long quote of the DNC

convention director I thought it was hilarious. Did it look really bad on CNN because it seems pretty funny?

[Protected]

16. I didn't catch the actual word being spoken,

but I did see Wolf Blitzer later trying to make it sound like the word came from a non-CNN source like the pool feed or something. That's certainly not true.

I heard an MP3 of it later and I thought it was funny. I probably would have been saying the same thing if I had thousands of dollars worth of balloons hanging from the ceiling that should have been falling.

[Kilroy003]

18. It looked and sounded terrible.

For some crazy reason, I watched the coverage on CNN. I typically will watch c-span or TPT (PBS in MN. When the speach ended, I was smiling, inside and out. When that live feed from the convention director started, I could not fucking believe it! There is no doubt that CNN did it deliberately. We should all call the comment line and email until this thing has been explained to the American public. Later on MSNBC, Trippy tried to say something about it but was immediatly silenced by that nasty Scarbourough character (what a hater). This whole thing is a travesty. Millions of people watched Kerry and most likely felt the same way I did, initially. When the live feed went on and on (seriously, it must have been at least 90 seconds) there's no doubt that some veiwers forgot all about the Kerry speech and what they were feeling. I am still pissed off at CNN for this, it is totally unfair. CNN should be fined and required to explain it's actions to the public during prime time news.

[VOX]

19. Anyone who's ever worked a public event understands the stress...

There are thousands of things that can go wrong, and some things inevitably do.

"Sotto voce" cussing often goes with the excruciating demands of public-event territory. The fact that this wasn't aimed at anyone in particular, but just an airing of one guy's stress overload, makes it completely innocuous.

Quite like Cheney leveling his wrath at a particular individual.

[Still_Loves_John]

20. Of course they played it, it was good television

The person to be mad at is whoever approved for CNN to tap into the coordinators mike. They should be fired.

I'm not really worried about the balloons though. If Kerry made a bad speech, the balloons would have been a bigger deal because they would have symbolized the feelings in the hall then, but he did so well and everyone was so happy that the balloons not falling wasn't a big deal. Plus they fell eventually.