Graphic Screw Ups

[rkolsen 1679]

The title basically says it all. I am wondering what are the biggest graphical screw ups you have seen on television either local or national. I am not taking about ugly or horrendous design jobs but rather the context that it is used whether the text that's displaying something that makes no sense or text that is offensive like KTVU' Ho Lee Fuk, image errors such as a persons face not matching the name or things like map errors such as when NBC News removed New Hampshire from the map. Since we are talking about errors in general rather than critiquing the graphics I think this is the appropriate forum.

 

This morning while I was watching MSNBC's Way Too Early, I noticed strange text that appeared on the shows stock market ticker that made no sense what so ever. It appears to be dummy text that was entered during the design phase of the graphics, rather than using the standard Lorem Ipsum.

 

 

The passages said:

 

Only quite a fatuous individual would question the use of the mentally salubrious nature of sophisticated commentary, as demonstrated in this public,

I am cognizant of the information about your extreme tendency to receive persona.

Gentlemen I enjoy vocalizing sequipedalian loquatiousness, poor riddleschool wow.

Salutations, commendable gentlemen, how are you on this elegant evening? Are you.

 

The first line appears to have come from a message board post asking users to come up with sentences with really big words.

 

You can the whole video on YouTube video

:

 

[yt]6_xkLYVuFik[/yt]

 

I posted it on twitter and carbon copied the message to TVNewser which and FTVLive which wondered why a person would watch MSNBC. Neither of which gave me credit or a hat tip (I kind expected this from FTVLive however because Scott seems to like copying and paste articles verbatim from other news organizations with out giving them any credit what so ever and passes it off as his own.) It was then subsequently posted on MediaIte and BuzzFeed both of which downloaded the video from my youtube account and posted it as their own.

The only site that gave me credit was NewscastStudio who used my full name, which was associated to my YouTube account. NewscastStudio has always given me credit for every submission I have made or news tips either by my first name or handle.

 

As a side note, Normally I wouldn't put a watermark or my name on a screen grab or video in the past as I believe that I should not take credit on the graphics that were created by someone else seeing as I do not own the rights to the program or had up any involvement in any part. Although I did put my name on the corner of one set of the Hearst diagrid package which I submitted to Newscast studio after I noticed that the Baltimore Sun media critic David Zurawik used a couple of my images in his online blog. I confirmed my suspicions that posts in posts Baltimore Sun were my captures by first doing a Google related image search of the images used in his column then after I that I clicked on the more sizes button on Googles result page and it led back to my Flickr account which is where I originally posted them in a significantly higher resolution.

 

While holding these views I don't believe that I own the copyright toward the video I do believe I should get an acknowledgement of some sort for showing it to them, taking the effort of editing the video and grabbing the image. Maybe next time I should put a watermark up so I would get an acknowledgment of sorts. I tried putting up an annotation on YouTube but apparently it's not visible in all browsers. Do you know what I mean or am I just being a nitpick?

[sanewsguy 509]

I'm going to go slightly off topic to reply to you on the second half of your post.

 

 

I posted it on twitter and carbon copied the message to TVNewser which and FTVLive which wondered why a person would watch MSNBC. Neither of which gave me credit or a hat tip (I kind expected this from FTVLive however because Scott seems to like copying and paste articles verbatim from other news organizations with out giving them any credit what so ever and passes it off as his own.) It was then subsequently posted on MediaIte and BuzzFeed both of which downloaded the video from my youtube account and posted it as their own.

The only site that gave me credit was NewscastStudio who used my full name, which was associated to my YouTube account. NewscastStudio has always given me credit for every submission I have made or news tips either by my first name or handle.

 

As a side note, Normally I wouldn't put a watermark or my name on a screen grab or video in the past as I believe that I should not take credit on the graphics that were created by someone else seeing as I do not own the rights to the program or had up any involvement in any part. Although I did put my name on the corner of one set of the Hearst diagrid package which I submitted to Newscast studio after I noticed that the Baltimore Sun media critic David Zurawik used a couple of my images in his online blog. I confirmed my suspicions that posts in posts Baltimore Sun were my captures by first doing a Google related image search of the images used in his column then after I that I clicked on the more sizes button on Googles result page and it led back to my Flickr account which is where I originally posted them in a significantly higher resolution.

 

While holding these views I don't believe that I own the copyright toward the video I do believe I should get an acknowledgement of some sort for showing it to them, taking the effort of editing the video and grabbing the image. Maybe next time I should put a watermark up so I would get an acknowledgment of sorts. I tried putting up an annotation on YouTube but apparently it's not visible in all browsers. Do you know what I mean or am I just being a nitpick?

 

I read FTVLive daily as my primary source of TV news and I read this on there but I didn't know you tipped them off. He is usually good about giving people credit but he will not name individuals since he has to protect his highly confidential sources. He may have thought you worked for a TV station so he didn't want to name you so he could protect you. He's actually doing you a favor. He's not trying to take ownership of your material. He just copy/pastes from the other sources since it's much easier than rewriting it. He's not in school or working for a professional organization so plagiarism isn't a big deal for them. Not saying it's right, just saying it's more convenient and when you're your own boss, it's not a big deal.

 

I have zero respect for Michael Hill and Dak Dillon and I won't read any of their sites or give them any page clicks. They have zero credibility in my book.

 

BuzzFeed has zero credibility in my opinion so don't even worry about them.

 

I HATE HATE HATE watermarks and will never do it. If people steal my caps and take it as their own, so be it. It's more flattering than it is offensive, at least to me. I don't own the material so what's the point of me adding my own watermark to it. I want to post my videos unaltered, exactly as they aired on TV without any fluff.

 

"While holding these views I don't believe that I own the copyright toward the video I do believe I should get an acknowledgement of some sort for showing it to them, taking the effort of editing the video and grabbing the image. Maybe next time I should put a watermark up so I would get an acknowledgment of sorts. I tried putting up an annotation on YouTube but apparently it's not visible in all browsers. Do you know what I mean or am I just being a nitpick?"

 

Most people who use watermarks feel this way. I feel differently. I take the effort for you to enjoy it. I make no money off it. I do it because I genuinely have interest in it and understand there may be fellow news junkies out there who want to see this material. It's actually more effort on my part to add a watermark to it than just to post it as is. If I didn't have interest in it I wouldn't go out of my way to capture the material and edit it in the first place. If people take the material and post it as their own so be it. People will always do that no matter what.

 

Also, NEVER use YouTube Annotations as a substitute for bugs, since they can be removed anyways with the click of a button.

[rkolsen 1679]

I'm going to go slightly off topic to reply to you on the second half of your post.

 

 

I read FTVLive daily as my primary source of TV news and I read this on there but I didn't know you tipped them off. He is usually good about giving people credit but he will not name individuals since he has to protect his highly confidential sources. He may have thought you worked for a TV station so he didn't want to name you so he could protect you. He's actually doing you a favor. He's not trying to take ownership of your material. He just copy/pastes from the other sources since it's much easier than rewriting it. He's not in school or working for a professional organization so plagiarism isn't a big deal for them. Not saying it's right, just saying it's more convenient and when you're your own boss, it's not a big deal.

 

I have zero respect for Michael Hill and Dak Dillon and I won't read any of their sites or give them any page clicks. They have zero credibility in my book.

 

BuzzFeed has zero credibility in my opinion so don't even worry about them.

 

I HATE HATE HATE watermarks and will never do it. If people steal my caps and take it as their own, so be it. It's more flattering than it is offensive, at least to me. I don't own the material so what's the point of me adding my own watermark to it. I want to post my videos unaltered, exactly as they aired on TV without any fluff.

 

"While holding these views I don't believe that I own the copyright toward the video I do believe I should get an acknowledgement of some sort for showing it to them, taking the effort of editing the video and grabbing the image. Maybe next time I should put a watermark up so I would get an acknowledgment of sorts. I tried putting up an annotation on YouTube but apparently it's not visible in all browsers. Do you know what I mean or am I just being a nitpick?"

 

Most people who use watermarks feel this way. I feel differently. I take the effort for you to enjoy it. I make no money off it. I do it because I genuinely have interest in it and understand there may be fellow news junkies out there who want to see this material. It's actually more effort on my part to add a watermark to it than just to post it as is. If I didn't have interest in it I wouldn't go out of my way to capture the material and edit it in the first place. If people take the material and post it as their own so be it. People will always do that no matter what.

 

Also, NEVER use YouTube Annotations as a substitute for bugs, since they can be removed anyways with the click of a button.

 

I never felt that way about watermarks or wanted to use them until said media critic who is also a media ethics professor, and was someone who I felt should know better than to take images off the internet (especially when my name is right there). I also questioned why would a media company like Tribune choose to use one of my images off the web for some article when they themselves have their own better quality photographs of the anchors in their photo library. It mainly made me question their editorial process more than anything. Consequently there is only that one set that has watermarks.

 

In all honesty I have no problem when a person or site grabs my screen grabs it's when a commercial site (by which I do not mean a blog with Google Adsense on it, rather the BuzzFeeds or MediaItes where they are Multi million dollar companies) reposts them with out permission. I do it for everyone else like us on the message board and other news enthusiasts because I also do enjoy it. If any of you would of reposted anything here or on your blogs I would get a kick out of it and say what a small world it is.

 

When I submitted it to FTV and TVNewser I did so because I thought they would repost it for their audiences to find it funny or strange and for them at least I did not expect credit because I didn't ask for it. When it was reposted with video ripped from my YouTube account by MediaIte and BuzzFeed is when I wished I used a watermark and got a little irritated. Now in all fairness to them they could of gotten the clip from their own recording or monitoring service like TVEyes but I doubted it since it starts and ends in the same spots as mine. Because of this instance it was the only reason I kind of wished I used a watermark.

 

As for FTV I will still read it but it just seems like the overall quality has gone down of late. It just seems to be late to posting on a lot of news lately and I know he's a one man band. But for someone who made money and was able to live comfortably by putting his site behind a paywall I kind of expect more professionally (specifically the copying and pasting - hell one or two sentences would be appropriate and satisfy me in most cases).

[ns8401 846]

Common ones at WXYZ:

"Tab Text Here" in the L3's.

 

"Location Right" where New York should be on the custom World News preview location box for the national anchor on the side by side shot, the WXYZ side is always properly filled out.

 

General error: the anchors not properly closing what must be the worlds tightest 6pm newscast by being too silly and wasting time causing the Scripps lighthouse ident to cut them off mid sentence. This also happens on the 11pm. It's embarrassing. This was happening often but has happened only once since the new ND arrived in January.

[Viper550 268]

The #chyronfail tag on 30fps often covers sports, but news gets into it occasionally.

 

There's a few Hearst screw-ups in there, including whatever caused this to happen. Oh, and one where a Nexstar duopoly got their Dan Patricks messed up

[rkolsen 1679]

Common ones at WXYZ:

"Tab Text Here" in the L3's.

"Location Right" where New York should be on the custom World News preview location box for the national anchor on the side by side shot, the WXYZ side is always properly filled out.

General error: the anchors not properly closing what must be the worlds tightest 6pm newscast by being too silly and wasting time causing the Scripps lighthouse ident to cut them off mid sentence. This also happens on the 11pm. It's embarrassing. This was happening often but has happened only once since the new ND arrived in January.

Sounds like, the location strap is a permanently located on the graphic. On the stations here in Baltimore they occasionally leave both location straps empty.

 

As for ident and vanity cards I do not care for them in local news and it find them to be a bit of a time waster. I would much rather they be aired as a lower third which would allow 10-15 seconds for a quick light hearted story. Now I don't mind the use of a vanity card if the show is prerecorded (like a weekly interview show) or a special event (like a local Christmas tree lighting).

 

Here's a typo from KTTV:

 

Now here's a royal screw up from WBAL-TV that was actually on air for about five minutes:

 

 

Also when the Today he how introduced their most recent graphics package, WBAL's ticker overlay actually showed the WESH stylized 2 logo for about two headlines at the top of the hour before being replaced by WBAL's stylized 11 logo. I can only guess that this happened because someone in their Orlando graphics hub used the wrong logo set when updating the Namedropper HD units that NBC uses for logo and text insertion.

[T.L. Hughes 753]

One of the so-called "chyron fails" that 30fps lists I'm not sure is one. The screengrab from Fox Sports Florida in the link shows that the Fox Sports Girls in the pic at bottom are addressed only by their first names, unlike the male commentators and reporters.

 

http://30fps.mocksession.com/2014/03/28/i-guess-the-women-arent-important-enough-to-have-last-names/

 

It doesn't make much sense, but I think it's standard that the FS Girls in every Fox Sports Net region are referred on a first name basis only, correct? Even on the FSN websites.

[NewsMaster 226]

 

One of the so-called "chyron fails" that 30fps lists I'm not sure is one. The screengrab from Fox Sports Florida in the link shows that the Fox Sports Girls in the pic at bottom are addressed only by their first names, unlike the male commentators and reporters.

 

http://30fps.mocksession.com/2014/03/28/i-guess-the-women-arent-important-enough-to-have-last-names/

 

It doesn't make much sense, but I think it's standard that the FS Girls in every Fox Sports Net region are referred on a first name basis only, correct? Even on the FSN websites.

 

IMO, it's just like how cheerleaders for pro sports teams are referred to only by their first names. Guess Fox doesn't want viewers to follow them personally on social media or something. Still, I think it's dumb.

[Samantha 2878]

Have you ever considered that it could also be to protect them from potential stalkers?

 

Saying "Jenny" is better than saying "Jenny Smith" and having some guy stalk you out online.

[rkolsen 1679]

Sorry if it's getting list like. But today during the Today show they aired the Emmy nominations live (boring) and afterward they discussed the nominees. I didn't get a screen grab as my TiVo deleted it and I'd imagine they corrected it on the web and the tape delayed feeds.

 

They displayed the graphic showing the best male nominee and instead of Kevin Spacey they put up the name and photo of James Spader. I'm not sure if it's intentional because perhaps when they were making the graphics live they could have picked the wrong element if the files were sorted by last name - Spader and Spacey don't sound alike but they are awfully close alphabetically. But it could also be wishful thinking on the networks part that one of their hit shows main actor were nominated.

[cbs2newengland 71]

 

I'm going to go slightly off topic to reply to you on the second half of your post.

 

I read FTVLive daily as my primary source of TV news and I read this on there but I didn't know you tipped them off. He is usually good about giving people credit but he will not name individuals since he has to protect his highly confidential sources. He may have thought you worked for a TV station so he didn't want to name you so he could protect you. He's actually doing you a favor. He's not trying to take ownership of your material. He just copy/pastes from the other sources since it's much easier than rewriting it. He's not in school or working for a professional organization so plagiarism isn't a big deal for them. Not saying it's right, just saying it's more convenient and when you're your own boss, it's not a big deal.

 

I have zero respect for Michael Hill and Dak Dillon and I won't read any of their sites or give them any page clicks. They have zero credibility in my book.

 

BuzzFeed has zero credibility in my opinion so don't even worry about them.

 

I HATE HATE HATE watermarks and will never do it. If people steal my caps and take it as their own, so be it. It's more flattering than it is offensive, at least to me. I don't own the material so what's the point of me adding my own watermark to it. I want to post my videos unaltered, exactly as they aired on TV without any fluff.

 

"While holding these views I don't believe that I own the copyright toward the video I do believe I should get an acknowledgement of some sort for showing it to them, taking the effort of editing the video and grabbing the image. Maybe next time I should put a watermark up so I would get an acknowledgment of sorts. I tried putting up an annotation on YouTube but apparently it's not visible in all browsers. Do you know what I mean or am I just being a nitpick?"

 

Most people who use watermarks feel this way. I feel differently. I take the effort for you to enjoy it. I make no money off it. I do it because I genuinely have interest in it and understand there may be fellow news junkies out there who want to see this material. It's actually more effort on my part to add a watermark to it than just to post it as is. If I didn't have interest in it I wouldn't go out of my way to capture the material and edit it in the first place. If people take the material and post it as their own so be it. People will always do that no matter what.

 

Also, NEVER use YouTube Annotations as a substitute for bugs, since they can be removed anyways with the click of a button.

 

 

 

I never felt that way about watermarks or wanted to use them until said media critic who is also a media ethics professor, and was someone who I felt should know better than to take images off the internet (especially when my name is right there). I also questioned why would a media company like Tribune choose to use one of my images off the web for some article when they themselves have their own better quality photographs of the anchors in their photo library. It mainly made me question their editorial process more than anything. Consequently there is only that one set that has watermarks.

 

In all honesty I have no problem when a person or site grabs my screen grabs it's when a commercial site (by which I do not mean a blog with Google Adsense on it, rather the BuzzFeeds or MediaItes where they are Multi million dollar companies) reposts them with out permission. I do it for everyone else like us on the message board and other news enthusiasts because I also do enjoy it. If any of you would of reposted anything here or on your blogs I would get a kick out of it and say what a small world it is.

 

When I submitted it to FTV and TVNewser I did so because I thought they would repost it for their audiences to find it funny or strange and for them at least I did not expect credit because I didn't ask for it. When it was reposted with video ripped from my YouTube account by MediaIte and BuzzFeed is when I wished I used a watermark and got a little irritated. Now in all fairness to them they could of gotten the clip from their own recording or monitoring service like TVEyes but I doubted it since it starts and ends in the same spots as mine. Because of this instance it was the only reason I kind of wished I used a watermark.

 

As for FTV I will still read it but it just seems like the overall quality has gone down of late. It just seems to be late to posting on a lot of news lately and I know he's a one man band. But for someone who made money and was able to live comfortably by putting his site behind a paywall I kind of expect more professionally (specifically the copying and pasting - hell one or two sentences would be appropriate and satisfy me in most cases).

 

I think is courteous and professional to cite the original source of the video wether or not you own the copyright. The worst offender on YouTube is the Chuck D/WhatsAYak/Whatever his current carnation - who a few years ago responded to someone on his channel's wall that he "doesn't have the time" to upload full newscasts but somehow has the time to rip off other people's video on YouTube of long commercial breaks, and then cuts up promos or ads then uploads them, and does not give a damn to put the handle/name of the original video. I suppose he makes it easier to look things up, but I still find that just not very 'Net appropriate. IMO he shall be damned for his monkey business there.