Especially during the overnights, if there's anything on the center two screens of CNN Pipeline, it's a fixed camera, someone recording the same story, over and over for all of the affiliates or a reporter getting ready to file a report.

Well, I assume it snowed in or near Atlanta last night because for at least the past ten minutes, there's been a female reporter on Pipe 2, who is apparently building a snowman for entertainment or to decorate her report on WSB's morning news.

If this scenario is of as much interest to you, as it was to me, I've put some screencaps under the jump.

( I can honestly say, I really feel Pipeline is worth the price )
Update: They've made a time-lapsed of her building the snowman and are planning to tease it at the break.

Last night, I posted that CNN Pipeline was broadcasting a camera aimed at President Ford's closed coffin in a California church. I also mentioned that there were a surprising number of people coming for the viewing in the middle of the night, plus though I didn't say it outright, I kind of felt sorry for the soldiers standing at attention.

The following screencaps were snapped at around 3:15 AM (Eastern), as he lay in state under the Capital Rotunda. It's the weekend and the middle of the night, so I can't really fault CNN for bringing me these images. Ordinarily at night, Pipes 2 and 3 are either blank, or they're showing a shot of the White House from perhaps the Washington Monument, or they're carrying some poor reporter recording the same story over and over, except each time with a different station's close. (Sasha Foo - Fox 25 News, etc)

From a camera in the Rotunda;



From a camera at ground-level (Please note, there is a young lady in a jean jacket who had wandered in and was snapping a couple of photos. You can just make her out between the formation and the big white statue)



FYI: Pipe 1 is always CNN International for most of the night, while Pipe 4 usually has a weather thing going in the off hours.
ETA (For the Record): Sasha Foo was the overnight anchor on CNN (Headline) in the early 80s. She is burned into my memory.

OK - It's 11:50 PM in Rancho Mirage and CNN Pipeline has a live feed of people filing past Gerald Ford's casket.

Update: It's now 3:15 AM in Rancho Mirage. The five Marines are still standing at attention and though I can't really tell if she's in uniform, but the female possible Marine who appears to be a greeter is also standing in an attention-like stance, while the guy in the suit has wandered in and out of the frame, a couple of times while I've watched. Just now, I saw the first couple of mourners in about five minutes. So, it appears that there are a few nightowls in California, who are wanting to pay respects.

Oops, before I could hit post - Now there's a group of about six people. A Presidential viewing must be the hot ticket in town. Leave the bar, fill your belly at the Waffle House, then stop by and look at a President's flag-draped casket, deep in the middle of the night.

Today is a free day on CNN Pipeline. Right this minute and for the last while, we've got news headlines on Pipe 1; The NASA Mission Update is on Pipe 2; Pipe 4 is showing a debate from the Missouri Senatorial race and Pipe 3 has silent coverage from a stationary camera of a boat that's stuck in the mud. I really hope those sampling the service can find something of interest.

Update

Two hours after attempts to move the ship were suspended, authorities held a press conference and thankfully, Pipeline switched to covering actual content. First the press availability and now, Pipe 3 has the "Corporate Excellence Awards".

Oh, and the boat's still stuck.

Once again an issue came up a few days ago and as the discussion started as a whisper, I elected to participate. Perhaps yesterday, the furor had risen to a crescendo, I'm not sure right now, but I do know that after making multiple comments to multiple blogs, I feel the need to clarify my position and consolidate everything here. After all, I'm sure some of those who may be reading this has an opinion and all roads lead back to this journal, so it's only fair to provide a place of my own for a possible discussion.

As I'm sure you may have heard by now, during last Thursday's Anderson Cooper 360°, CNN broadcast a portion of tape provided by Iraqi insurgents and which showed point-of-view shots of a sniper taking out American soldiers. Unlike their web videos, the tape included sound. Throughout the footage shown, the video was properly labeled as being from the insurgents, an editorial decision was made to go black at the points of impact and the bulk of the package was analysis and opinion from informed sources.

If for some reason you haven't seen the tape, it is linked from the sidebar of this article describing the scene and CNN's official explanation for the airing can be found on the blog for AC:360.

Basically, a producer had been trying to work a high level insurgent and he submitted a series of questions to the man. In a surprise move, the insurgent leader answered the questions via videotape and also submitted the sniper film at the same time. Most likely and as is stated in CNN's package, it was part of an announced campaign by the insurgents attempting to sway American opinion.

The uproar appears to have started, when a California Congressman and the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Duncan Hunter went public with the suggestion that CNN reporters be unembedded from US troops in Iraq and he questioned the network's patriotism. "I think Americans like to think we're all in this together," Hunter was quoted by the LA Times. "The average American Marine or soldier has concluded after seeing that film that CNN is not on their side."

Throughout this entire discussion, I have taken the position that the news should not have sides, but that it should reflect the "unvarnished truth" to borrow a term from the executive producer of Anderson Cooper's program. By and large, it appears that the journalistic and academic community agrees with me and I've found that even some former soldiers who have fought on the ground in Iraq are saying some of the same things, I have said. US soldiers are being shot by insurgents, a recent study puts the number of attacks to be equal to one every fifteen minutes. The tape shows the reality of what these people are facing and we should not be afraid of the truth. Yes, it was submitted as propaganda, but so are the tapes from CENTCOM showing the devastating effects of smart bombs, embedded journalists and the occasional video recorded by a soldier. It is not the job of an unbiased news organization to deem one group's propaganda as being acceptable, while dismissing the other as being something else.

Well, it appears judging from some of the comments around the web that the Congressman's outrage has become cause celeb by one of the other news channels. Ironically and I'm only guessing, but it looks like it's the one owned by the immigrant.

On Monday's Tucker, the former CNN analyst and current MSNBC host declared; "Republicans suspect that there are people that work at CNN, particularly in its foreign operations, who don't like the United States, and I am telling you they are absolutely right. I have met them. On the other hand, let's take a deep breath and look at the video in question. Anybody -- any American anyway -- who watches this video comes away with one thought. This is repulsive. As you hear a man yell 'God is great' as he murders an American it makes you less sympathetic to the insurgency, not more sympathetic. So yes, this is an enemy propaganda film, and CNN says as much in introducing it. But it's an enemy propaganda film that does not work in this country. It makes you hate the insurgency."

Such has been a lot of the recent debate, but this morning, I tried to take it a step further.

You see, I'm of the opinion that CNN and the BBC are special. I don't believe that any news organization should take sides in any conflict and like a lot of people, I did think that everyone went a little overboard after 9/11. But, some news organizations did choose to permanently wrap themselves in a flag at that time and by doing so, they've secured an audience. The difference though is that CNN is the shining beacon of hope to the far corners of the globe. They are in the unique position to focus worldwide attention on almost any situation, anywhere. They, above all others can not be seen as taking sides because if it weren't for CNN, more people might suffer and be oppressed in even more parts of the world. After all, if CNN can't be there, who will be?

(Title Reference: Mellencamp's "You've Got to Stand for Something")

Warren Buffett often makes a reference to "members of the lucky sperm club", when he's making his argument against dynastic wealth. For more than an hour, Lebanese TV (NewTV) has been simulcasting on CNN's Pipeline and for most of that time, the shot has consisted of a fixed camera on a rooftop showing the southern suburbs of Beirut. Every once and a while there is a loud explosion and because they've been broadcasting mostly without narration, you've been able to hear American reporters getting ready for their standups. According to a fellow a few minutes ago, there've been about a dozen explosions thus far this evening and the roar in the background is the sound of Israeli jets. Whenever I've heard Mr Buffett's speech, his phrasing always causes me to think about the spawn of the unlucky and as the Lebanese night sky sits in a corner of my screen, I must count my blessings.

There's a compilation of shots from the President's visit to Graceland with the Japanese Prime Minister currently running in my Pipeline window. If memory serves, Georgie Boy had never left the country prior to becoming President, even though his Daddy was the Ambassador to China. Now, today we learned that he's never been to Graceland and on the several occasions that the Mr Koizumi tried to start a sing-along of Elvis hits, you couldn't even see recognition in Mr Bush's eyes. I'll forgive him from not singing, but it looked like he didn't even know the songs, not even the "Battle Hymn of the Republic". What planet is this dude from?

When I logged into the Pipeline this morning, I was offered a choice of watching hurricane predictions, Air Force One land , a "Town Meeting" with the results of an investigation into New Orleans levee failures and continuous helicopter coverage of a seven year old swimming from Alcatraz. Well, two of the stories aren't and the hurricane predictions will be on the wire, so I opted for Louisiana.

First of all, I'd advise anyone not to try watching a boring-ass powerpoint presentation with some fast-paced, cartoon music from PBS drifting-in from the other room. Also, if you're ever going to give a powerpoint that will be covered on television or a television-like device, you should see about plugging your projector into the feed. A camera pointed at a screen does the job, but it isn't ideal.

And, if you are charged with giving a final report on a disaster that killed more than a thousand people, you might want to consider proposing something more substantial than a couple of additional levels of bureaucracy and passing the buck. I think two federal departments of risk assessment could be one too many and sure, I guess some state agency should be empowered, but the rest is gobbledygook and I only hope it is better outlined, with more detail in the written document.

Three Main Points*;

• The levee system failed in large part because of embedded deficiencies, and because safety and reliability were traded for economics.



• These problems arose largely as a result of organizational, political and resource allocation issues intrinsic to the "process".



• We can not simply modify some of the engineering details: if we want to make safe levee systems, we also have to overhaul the process.

*taken from a slide with this name

I was watching CNN Pipeline on Friday, when a story about a fellow who stole a $1300 designer dog from a Florida pet store by stuffing it in his pants, ran in the main window. As a blogger that likes to comment on the esoteric, I took issue with a quote from a random customer; "It's like taking a child. You wouldn't want a child to be stolen and I wouldn't want the puppies to be stolen, either." From a factual basis, the problem with the quote was that a person's puppy could be like a their child, but this expensive cross between a beagle and a pug was a piece of merchandise on a store's shelf and though a dog is a living thing, I find it doubtful the clerks had made an emotional connection. This distinction was sort of reflected in the interview with the store's manager, who focused in the CNN cut on the fact that the dog could get sick, it didn't have all of it's shots and in other videos from other sites, she pointed out that the breed has protruding eyes that might've gotten scratched, when the thief shoved it down the back of his sweats.

I had wanted to comment and link to the video, but this was about the third time that I've seen a story which can be isolated via an archive search of Pipeline, but neither it, nor a text-based story would come up through a search of CNN.com. I also tried looking through the offerings of the credited news station, but in this instance, the video on the local site was a different edit which didn't include the quote. A revisit of this same source shows that the CNN video is still not available from the local station, but for anyone who may be interested; They identified his distractingly dressed accomplice and convinced her to return the puggle. A store spokesperson says that the puppy is being checked by a veterinarian and that they may donate it to a center for autistic children.

As I said, this marks possibly the third time that I've seen a story on the Pipeline about which I'd like to comment, but because they were exclusive content and not easily found on CNN.com, I've had to look elsewhere for something to link. None of these alternative stories have ever been identical to the CNN piece, but in one instance it communicated the gist and in another, I found that by expanding my search to other local stations, I've discovered a better edit from a non-affiliate. I can understand CNN wanting to reserve the live stream for their paying customers, but by making the individual videos inaccessible to an outside audience, by merging the Pipeline index into their mainpage, so that it isn't entirely clear what is free and what is reserved content and by not providing an easy way to link, they are limiting the viral method of advertising their service. I don't know about everyone else, but I do know that if it was possible, I'd happily offer occasional links and as more people become aware of the value, viewership of their main channel, readership of their website and the subscriber base for the Pipeline service should increase over time.

In case you've missed the flurry of announcements, CNN's Pipeline is free today.

You can view it without downloading the software, but if you decide to subscribe, the software would be recommended. It's just that it's over there, download and cost free in celebration of Fat Tuesday. They have been running a couple of pipe's worth of Mardi Gras coverage and giving it special focus in their main window, but right now; There's news headlines on Pipe1; the State Department Briefing on Pipe2; Mardi Gras on Pipe3 and I'm monitoring helicopter coverage of a SWAT stand-off in Austin on Pipe4.

I've been watching Carl Icahn's event, where he and his people are outlining his plans to break Time-Warner (formerly AOL-TW) into four separate units. I haven't read the full 350-page report and right this minute, they appear to having database problems on their break-up website, but I've been in favor of re-breaking the company into at least two parts for a couple of years.

Personally, I've always been torn about the company. I've long been a fan of Ted Turner, but I had significant questions when he merged with Time-Warner because of the consolidation of voices. I could see the Steve Case's vision, when he conned the larger company into becoming subservient to his crappy BBS, but either he lost interest or I have always been correct and he's just an idiot. Current management really haven't done a lot, but I don't have the kind of vitriol for Dick Parsons that I just her from Carl Icahn.

I'd like to read the report and I'd like to hear Mr Turner's opinion, but what I found fascinating, possibly even beyond the news value of this dramatic proposal; I'm watching the meeting on Pipeline. Which may just go to prove, the pocketbook will win every time.

Six months ago, if you were to tell me that I was going to write a post in support of Anderson Cooper, I would've said you were insane. It may not had been obvious from the snarky way that I've referred to him, but I've always liked the guy. Since I first saw him back on ABC in '99, I considered him the type of guy who'd have a friendly demeanor, be naturally witty and interesting to hang with in a bar. I wasn't fond of the way CNN unceremoniously dumped Aaron Brown, admittedly Anderson doesn't have his depth, but he's reportedly easier to work with and any way you look at it, the way the print media has tried to make him their whipping boy hasn't been right.

His star started to rise, when he ripped into Sen. Mary Landrieu and it marked a turning point in the Katrina coverage across the entire media landscape. He was also the first with the story that all but one miner was dead. Yes, the woman who told him had left her house and came down during the celebration to see the guy she had been watching on television and when she learned the horrible truth, she went the opposite way from her house only to tell Anderson and for that reason, he got the story first and beat his closest competitor by several minutes.

Anderson Cooper is the son of Gloria Vanderbilt. She was heir to a railroading fortune and whose childhood was the stuff of soap operas. Ms Vanderbilt was a New York socialite, who dabbled in art as an adult and in the '70s, she licensed her name to a line of clothing. Her most famous product were very tight jeans and to this day, I can't see or hear black denim without thinking of her name. This may be only fitting, because lending her name and appearing in ads were the only way she was involved.

Anderson wanted to be a reporter, so he bought his own equipment and flew off to Burma to cover a student uprising and to sell his stories on the freelance market. His primary client was Channel One, where he had worked as a fact checker and where he had some contacts. Eventually, he went with them fulltime as Chief International Correspondent. After Burma, he repeated the feat from Vietnam and then the war-torn countries of Somalia, Bosnia and Rwanda. Like his mother before him, he found something he wanted to do and promoted himself into a position. Both had the advantages of wealth, but they made themselves a name.

I discovered Mr Cooper, when he was co-anchoring "World News Now" and though he obviously wasn't as sharp as Aaron Brown, who had proceeded him by a few years, he was worlds better than the idiot male that currently hosts the program and many of those between. I can't say that I followed him to CNN because it's always been my cable news of choice, but I haven't had a problem with his anchoring style and I feel he's genuine. I also feel that he's a new kind of anchor, as is Brian Williams. They both seem to be cut from the cloth of Peter Jennings and come across as being accessible. After all, there's a reason Lynette Roby felt comfortable coming down from her home, accompanied by her children and simply walking up to a man, broadcasting around the world.

"Pray." It was the one word suggestion by the president of the mining company, when asked by a reporter if there was anything he'd like to say to the viewers at home during the 5AM (EST) press availability. I'll have to say that to this untrained eye, things aren't looking very good. Thus far and contrary to some of what's being reported from the scene, they have found no evidence of a cave-in and from the initial rescue attempt moments after the mishap occurred until now, almost to the break of day, they've only found signs of some type of explosion and that determination seems to be based entirely on air quality measures.

I had intended to mention West Virginia in my next post, primarily because my mother's hometown was my first taste of urban culture and I was in mind of addressing the new year and my personal history with the holiday. This was long before the mishap occurred and before I positioned Pipeline in the corner of my screen, where I've watched the news conferences and the reporters filing their reports for the local broadcasts and the CNN family of stations. Because I like breaking news and unfiltered access, initially I looked for a live feed from one of the local affiliates. My mother's hometown is the largest city in that market (Clarksburg) and one of my Great-Grandfathers married his way through a couple of sisters, who were born and raised not far from the afflicted mine. My other Great-Grandfather ended his days as a circuit-riding preacher by founding a church up the road in Buckhannon, or the town where the reporters are most likely staying. So, I have a personal connection to that part of the world and in addition to wanting to relive the sense of relief, I felt when they saved those guys in Pennsylvania a few years ago, I'm pretty familiar with their news landscape.

It did puzzle me and most likely it has to do with rich versus poor, but none of the local stations are offering any web-coverage beyond the wire service stories. The young lady who was doing the reporting for Newsource was apparently dispatched out of DC and I've only found reference to a Huntington station, who sent a live crew. There are other crews on the ground and I've seen some of their reports, heard their voices during the lulls in the Pipeline coverage, or I've watched their trucks arrive on scene. Other than Pipeline, I've not found unfettered access and though it's the middle of the night, I also find this somewhat disappointing. To make matters worse, the newspaper for that part of the world also has the bad habit of not updating their site until midday, so right now and though I have access to the world, the national media and the repetition of CNN's local feeds is all I've been able to find.

CNN's Pipeline has now been around for a week and previously I offered a few suggestions. This morning, I'd like to add two more;

• I was very disappointed that it was mostly blank for the weekend. I realize the target audience are those at work, but with the proliferation of residential broadband, it'd be nice to have some type of offering other than just a mirror of CNN-I.



• Functionally, I think I'd prefer for the console to live in my system tray. Whenever it's active, space is taken from my taskbar and this feels unnecessary. Some other programs give the option of minimizing into the system tray and because Pipeline is already there with its preloader, the duplication and loss of real estate doesn't make a lot of sense.

Otherwise, if you haven't tried Pipeline and if you have a taste for news, the service is well worth trying. There has been incremental improvement in the programming and fewer times with a lot of fill. Myself and others have made suggestions and though most of mine have been geared toward the interface, which makes them harder to implement, I have seen evidence that they've been listening and possibly incorporating the easier of our ideas. CNN/Time-Warner should be applauded.

Thus far, the second day of Pipeline appears to be showing improvement. I liked the first day, but one of my complaints were that there was a lot of filler. I don't know if it's a function of it being Tuesday, a response to all the good press or the producers are just getting more comfortable, but today looks like they're offering more hard news.

When I first logged-in this morning, one pipe was simulcasting Iraqi TV and another had helicopter coverage of a wreck in California. As I'm writing this post, there is a pipe pumping reaction from in front of the Supreme Court; Another is pointed toward a lectern waiting for Condoleezza Rice; A third is webcasting excerpts from the Saddam Hussein trial and Pipe1 was doing headlines and repackaged content, though it has since turned to audio coverage from within the Supreme Court.

The whole thing seems to be coming together and they appear to be getting a handle of our wants. I'm sure the positive reviews have helped, I especially liked the one from Ziff-Davis; "CNN Pipeline isn't perfect, but it's certainly the most impressive video offering the Web has ever seen." So, because the general consensus looks to be a hearty round of applause and the choices are getting better, I'd like to take a moment to suggest a couple of improvements towards functionality.

( A Few Suggestions for Anyone Who May Be Interested )