[TV orNotTV] NBC's Ryan Cutaway

[PGage]

I record NBC's primetime Olympic telecast on the West Coast and start watching it about 60 to 90 minutes later. Tonight, somehwere in the middle third or so of the coverage, NBC broke into the lead up to a preliminary heat in one of the track events so Chuck Todd could make a someone breathless announcement that three sources (but not the Romney campaign, at least for the record) had confirmed that Paul Ryan would be Romney's VP choice. Andrea Mitchell also came on with an additional nugget. Both were surprisingly poorly prepared and seemed to stumble quite a bit in their delivery (Mitchell especially).

Why were these guys so rushed and poorly prepared? I guess because this was some kind of scoop and they wanted to be the first ones to get it out there. Apparently they did not even have time to write out a script on a teleprompter (one can almost hear Todd snarling "We'll do it live!). Or was it because they knew only the west coast was going to see it?

Given the multiple layers of recording and tape delay, I am unsure as to when the announcement was actually made, and at what point NBC interrupted the program. Was I watching a 3-hour old (when it was recorded on my DVR) announcement that the East Coast saw on the original (but still prerecorded) Olympic show? That seems unlikely to me, because it would mean that NBC knew about the Ryan announcement when the primetime show started, but let the west coast wait an hour and half or so to tell us. Perhaps there was an announcement on NBC, or my local NBC affiliate, prior to the Olympic telecast, and then NBC just allowed the previous, now stale, breathless Todd cutaway run as it did live for the east coast. If so, that seems lame - the news was already old and told, just let us watch the preliminary heat. Or, was the cutaway live on the west coast? If so, then did the east coast see it too? I am not sure what time the cutaway occurred, but it may have been during the window for local news after the primetime show on the east coast. Maybe the east coast got Brian Williams making a calm, professional report breaking into local news coverage, while the west coast got a quick and dirty report attempting to fit in just before the start of a preliminary race (they rejoined it already in progress).

[Brad Beam]

----- Original Message -----
From: PGage


>Was I watching a 3-hour old (when it was recorded on my DVR) announcement
>that the East Coast saw on the original (but still prerecorded) Olympic
>show? That seems unlikely to me, because it would mean that NBC knew about
>the Ryan announcement when the primetime show started, but let the west
>coast wait an hour and half or so to tell us. Perhaps there was an
>announcement on NBC, or my local NBC affiliate, prior to the Olympic
>telecast, and then NBC just allowed the previous, now stale, breathless
>Todd cutaway run as it did live for the east coast.

According to the aggregated Twitter feeds of my local newspaper's staff, the
retweeted AP post was at 1:10a ET.

As for Mr Todd, he wasn't faring much better on this MSNBC clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2az1JTAAR3I

_ _
|_>|_> Brad Beam- Belle WV
|_>|_> http://www.facebook.com/74bmw

[David Lynch]

AIUI, NBC broke in at 12:01 ET, immediately upon the conclusion of the
prime-time telecast for the eastern and central time zones. I do not
remember seeing it on my local station, although from what I saw on
the closed-captioning at the bar I was at, they did lead the local
news with word that it was probably Ryan.

Apparently, getting the scoop on the VPOTUS pick is a big deal. I saw
a tweet last night about how Andrea Mitchell's official NBC bio
mentions two previous times she has been the first to report it.

--
David J. Lynch
djl...@gmail.com

[Melissa P]

I'm not sure who's taking credit for what, but several days ago, Chuck Todd
pretty much said that Ryan was the pick.

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[David Bruggeman]

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David

---

From: Melissa P <takingup...@gmail.com>
Subject: RE: [TV orNotTV] NBC's Ryan Cutaway

I'm not sure who's taking credit for what, but several days ago, Chuck Todd
pretty much said that Ryan was the pick.

-----Original Message-----
From: tvor...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tvor...@googlegroups.com] On
Behalf Of David Lynch

[PGage]

On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 10:50 AM, Melissa P <takingup...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm not sure who's taking credit for what, but several days ago, Chuck Todd
pretty much said that Ryan was the pick.

What I saw from Todd in recent days were predictions about what Romney would do; last night was reporting what he had decided, and would do the next morning (make the announcement).

[Melissa P]

I’m not sure exactly when it was (several days ago), but Todd was doing a story on the 4 VP front runners.  I can’t remember what his exact words were, but he made one little comment which indicated  that he had solid information that the pick was Ryan.  When I heard it, I said to myself:  “So, Ryan’s the choice.”   I would have been totally shocked had anyone but Ryan been named this morning.

 

 

From: tvor...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tvor...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of PGage
Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2012 2:48 PM
To: tvor...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [TV orNotTV] NBC's Ryan Cutaway

 

 

On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 10:50 AM, Melissa P <takingup...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Mark Jeffries]

Even though I've been seeing this heading all day and know better, I thought for a second that was going to be more Seacrest-bashing.  :)

[Bob in Jersey]

Mark Jeffries, to Melissa P:

Even though I've been seeing this heading all day and know better, I thought for a second that was going to be more Seacrest-bashing.  :)

[in Chief Johnson voice] Thank yew!



--
BOB

[Tom Wolper]

On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 4:02 PM, Mark Jeffries <spotl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Even though I've been seeing this heading all day and know better, I thought
> for a second that was going to be more Seacrest-bashing. :)

Well I, for one, don't understand why Romney didn't pick Seacrest.

[PGage]

Some of us think (maybe it is hope) that he is going to wish he had before this is all over.