The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer: Difference between revisions
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While Blitzer may be in New York during other regular days, video walls from the DC set are still primarily employed to show incoming images. |
While Blitzer may be in New York during other regular days, video walls from the DC set are still primarily employed to show incoming images. |
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On January 20th 2009 Blitzer's show committed the journalistic error by repeating the unsubstantiated claims that outgoing Clinton staff removed "W"s from keyboards and committed other vandalism even though this was debunked in April 2001 after an investigation by the FBI and General Services Administration which was prompted after Ari Fleisher made the false accusations on January 21, 2001. <ref> [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2001/05/19/MN169709.DTL]</ref> |
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The General Services Administration found nothing unusual about the condition of White House offices after Clinton officials left, and President Bush's staff said it had no records that indicated damage or subsequent repair work, the accounting office manager said. <br /> |
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During the first days of the Bush administration, Republican officials -- often quoted anonymously in news accounts -- accused Clinton's staff of numerous acts of vandalism, from littering the floor to overturning desks, stealing glassware and scrawling lewd graffiti on the walls. <br /> |
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On Jan. 25, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer had declined to detail the nature of any vandalism but criticized such behavior indirectly by asserting that the new administration would lead Americans toward greater civility.<br /> |
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At the time, Clinton offered to pay the cost of any vandalism but requested a detailed account of what, if anything, was amiss.<br /> |
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No such records exist, said Ungar, who questioned members of Bush's staff as well as workers who refurbished about 400 offices in the West Wing, the East Wing and the Old Executive Office Building. <br /> |
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Speaking for the Bush administration in an April 18 (2001) letter, Phillip Larsen, the director of the White House Office of Administration, told the GAO that it could not document any damage or repairs. <br /><ref> [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2001/05/19/MN169709.DTL]</ref> |
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Revision as of 00:26, 21 January 2009
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| The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer | |
|---|---|
| File:Situationroom.PNG The Situation Room | |
| Presented by | Wolf Blitzer |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| No. of episodes | Unknown |
| Production | |
| Running time | 180 minutes (4-7 p.m. ET) |
| Original release | |
| Network | CNN |
| Release | August 8, 2005 – Present |
The Situation Room is an afternoon/early evening newscast on CNN hosted by Wolf Blitzer that first aired on August 8, 2005. The show replaces three politics and hard news programs (Judy Woodruff's Inside Politics, Crossfire (cancelled on June 3, 2005) and Wolf Blitzer Reports).
At first, the newscast aired live from 3–6 p.m. ET and was subdivided into an hour devoted to politics, an hour devoted to security, and an hour devoted to international news. However, on November 2, 2005, CNN announced that The Situation Room would be chopped up: block 1 would air live from 4–6 p.m. ET, and block 2 would air live from 7–8 p.m. ET (taking over the timeslot held by Anderson Cooper 360 which moved to 10 p.m. ET). Lou Dobbs Tonight aired between the two blocks. Effective November 5, 2007, the show reverted to a single 3-hour block from 4:00–7:00pm ET to give more focus to the presidential election scheduled to take place 1 year from that date. Lou Dobbs Tonight has moved up to 7:00 pm ET. The third hour of The Situation Room is simulcasted on CNN International.
A number of CNN journalists and pundits often join Blitzer, including John King, Candy Crowley, Jack Cafferty, Donna Brazile, Ali Velshi, Carol Costello, Suzanne Malveaux , Abbi Tatton, Paul Begala, Bay Buchanan, James Carville, and J. C. Watts.
The show begins with the following (or a variation of this) phrase: To our viewers: You're in the Situation Room - where news and information are arriving all the time. Standing by: CNN reporters across the United States and around the world to bring you the day's top stories. Happening Now ... I'm Wolf Blitzer, and You're in the Situation Room." One other phrase Blitzer used during election coverage- "To Our Viewers in the United States and Around the World I'm Wolf Blitzer and You're in the Situation Room."
The Happening Now statement to introduce the day's top stories is a remnant from the show's primary predecessor, Wolf Blitzer Reports.
The show has garnered criticism for devoting excessive coverage to human interest stories, notably devoting almost an hour of commercial free coverage to a story about a virus affecting their Windows 2000 computers.[1][citation needed] Much of the criticism comes from satirist Jon Stewart, who has mocked the reporting of the show on multiple occasions. Saturday Night Live would later lampoon The Situation Room following the fallout from the death of Anna Nicole Smith and its excessive news coverage of the story in early 2007. However, the show also earned critical praise for its multiple-screen coverage of Hurricane Katrina.
Behind the scenes and studio uses
The Situation Room differs in some ways from similar cable news programs. For instance, use of eight video screens requires extra coordination. Two control rooms are used: One is exclusively used for the show itself, while the second is used to maintain content in the large eight-panel video wall. The show also makes use of live RSS feeds that scroll in the background at various times during the show. Live video feeds are commonly present in the show's format.
The show is broadcast live from CNN's studios in Washington D.C but during major voting events starting with the 2006 mid-term elections, the show mainly airs from the Time Warner Center in New York City using that broadcast centre's larger video walls. It continues to do so during the afternoons of major Presidential primary days, party conventions and debate nights when host Blitzer takes part in CNN's "Election Center" coverage. (Cast member Cafferty is regularly based at the Time Warner Center.)
While Blitzer may be in New York during other regular days, video walls from the DC set are still primarily employed to show incoming images.
On January 20th 2009 Blitzer's show committed the journalistic error by repeating the unsubstantiated claims that outgoing Clinton staff removed "W"s from keyboards and committed other vandalism even though this was debunked in April 2001 after an investigation by the FBI and General Services Administration which was prompted after Ari Fleisher made the false accusations on January 21, 2001. [1]
The General Services Administration found nothing unusual about the condition of White House offices after Clinton officials left, and President Bush's staff said it had no records that indicated damage or subsequent repair work, the accounting office manager said.
During the first days of the Bush administration, Republican officials -- often quoted anonymously in news accounts -- accused Clinton's staff of numerous acts of vandalism, from littering the floor to overturning desks, stealing glassware and scrawling lewd graffiti on the walls.
On Jan. 25, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer had declined to detail the nature of any vandalism but criticized such behavior indirectly by asserting that the new administration would lead Americans toward greater civility.
At the time, Clinton offered to pay the cost of any vandalism but requested a detailed account of what, if anything, was amiss.
No such records exist, said Ungar, who questioned members of Bush's staff as well as workers who refurbished about 400 offices in the West Wing, the East Wing and the Old Executive Office Building.
Speaking for the Bush administration in an April 18 (2001) letter, Phillip Larsen, the director of the White House Office of Administration, told the GAO that it could not document any damage or repairs.
[2]
