September 11, 2019

"10:49: Fox News Channel is the first of the United States news networks to implement a news ticker at the bottom of its screen for supplementary information about the attacks."

"CNN adds one at 11:11, and MSNBC adds one at approximately 2:00 pm. All three cable networks have used a news ticker continuously in the years since (and many local television stations have followed suit)" (Wikipedia 9/11 timeline).

63 comments:

Mike Sylwester said...

Who calls it a "news ticker" and who calls it a "chyron"?

henry said...

whatever they call it, does it contain news?

Mike Sylwester said...

In my own mind, I always have called it a "scroll".

Mike Sylwester said...

CNN uses its "scroll" mostly to make inane remarks about Trump.

Nonapod said...

Whenever I think of news tickers I always think of the great ones they did for the Onion News Network

JohnAnnArbor said...

I find it annoying at best and anxiety-producing at worst.

tcrosse said...

I thought the correct technical term was the Crawl.

Fernandinande said...

Who calls it a "news ticker" and who calls it a "chyron"?

Chryon™ is like Kleenex™ - you're supposed to pay to say it.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

There’s more news there than emitting from the talking heads.

Kevin said...

And a month or two later was the last time I ever watched TV news. Connection? Definitely.

Ann Althouse said...

The chyron is whatever the graphics are along the bottom. The crawl may be part of it or all of it but isn't necessarily there. It's the movement that makes it a crawl (or ticker, which refers to the old ticker tape machines). The constant movement causes a sense of anxiety. Since you know the words are always escaping to side, you feel a need to read them before they disappear.

traditionalguy said...

In places without sound like Gymns this gives a hint to watchers what the fake news is that day. The original use was for breaking news so as not to stop alive interview. Now they jump and shout that there is Breaking News for anything at all.

Ann Althouse said...

For quite a while after 9/11, I felt as though watching TV was a required responsibility, as though paying attention was an ethical matter.

On the morning of 9/11, I wasn't watching TV or listening to the radio. I was sitting calmly in the dining room reading the paper NYT. I went to work with no idea anything had happened. I was perfectly happy and gave a smiling, cheery greeting to a colleague who walked up as I was waiting to cross University Avenue to the law school. He asked me if I'd seen the news. I had not.

Wince said...

Hence the expression "bum ticker"?

"You're pushin' 60 and you got a bum ticker."

Mark said...

Which of the networks first kept the "BREAKING NEWS" banner up continuously hours and hours and days after the news broke?

gahrie said...

On the morning of 9/11, I wasn't watching TV or listening to the radio.

I had just gotten out of the shower and had the TV on, but wasn't paying attention. My Mom called to ask if I was watching, and as I was talking to her, and telling her about planes that had hit the Empire State building, the second plane hit. I immediately said that this was an act of war.

Mark said...

And which one first started to use the graphics to cover 1/3 to 1/2 of the screen?

rehajm said...

CNN uses its "scroll" mostly to make inane remarks about Trump.

Yes. Occasionally they've tried to merge the propaganda of leftie fact checkers with the immediacy of breaking news.

Lucien said...

Why is this blogworthy? I don't remember you doing this every year.

Mike Sylwester said...

For a while, some network (I forget which) broadcast Howard Stern's radio show in the late evenings. The network insisted on running a scroll along the bottom of the screen. Stern complained about it, on-screen and off-screen, but the network insisted on running it on Stern's comedy show.

Stern occasionally would make fun of the trivial news that the network insisted on running in its scroll.

gilbar said...

Mark asked...
Which of the networks first kept the "BREAKING NEWS" banner up continuously hours and hours and days after the news broke?


That would have been ABC, WAY BACK when the Iranian crises started. They started doing News after the news, with a backdrop saying "The Iran Crisis–America Held Hostage: Day XXX"
After a year or so, that seemed silly; and they just started calling it Nightline

Like MOST Evil things (Ted Koppel, George Snuffaluffagus, American Bandstand, Happy Days, All My Children);
The America in Crises CRAP started with ABC

gilbar said...

Lucien said... Why is this blogworthy? I don't remember you doing this every year.
From Last Year: Every year there's a scramble for 9/11-appropriate things to run.

Fernandinande said...

Who calls it a "news ticker" and who calls it a "chyron"?

Maybe this anecdote about types of people and how they speak will enlighten the whole class:

Bully: Hey, look what I found. A novelty flying disk.

Bart: Give it back! That's my novelty flying disk.

Then again, maybe not.

S12E02.

Kassaar said...

New York Times deletes 9/11 tweet after backlash: 'Airplanes took aim and brought down the World Trade Center'. (Fox)

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

The crawl is a useful, helpful feature that conveys auxiliary information, or unrelated news, while the main news story is running. The chyron, on Sept. 11, 2001, and for months afterwards, was a banner that covered the lower third, or more, of the screen, was mostly an advertisement for a channel we were already watching, and made TV news pretty much unbearable. I relied more on print and radio then, and progressively more, the web.

mccullough said...

Some people did something

tcrosse said...

Some people did something

Something happened with some airplanes and some buildings.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

The crawl was very useful on 9/11, since there was so much going on. It also added to the perception that day that many more attacks were happening simultaneously and the world was crashing down around us. I vaguely remember a report about a plane headed to Fort Knox and police raids on terrorist hideouts in Germany and France.

It has outlived its' usefulness and become an annoyance because it's used for utterly trivial fluff. Nowadays, you'll see crawls about Taylor Swift and the Kardashians, as if that is important news that everybody needs to know about.

Charlie Eklund said...

I’d love it if all the news channels did away with all the clutter in the screen, including the crawling ticker. That junk on the screen is the secondary reason I quit watching the news. The primary reason I quit watching the news? To protect my mental health and general sense of well-being. And it works!

tim maguire said...

tcrosse said...
Some people did something

Something happened with some airplanes and some buildings.


I see we have another Times reader. The Times, of course, is that well-known New York Newspaper that takes dictation from well-known America haters such as Ilhan Omar, the immigrant elected to congress by the same group of people who let Al Franken get away with stealing a senate seat, only to see him resign for feeling up women in his spare time.

But that's the Times for you. All the news that's fit to print.

Kevin said...

CNN uses its "scroll" mostly to make inane remarks about Trump.

Trump's election was CNN's 9/11.

Kevin said...

Trump's election was CNN's 9/11.

They're not sure what happened other than some people did something.

And it was bad.

wild chicken said...

It seemed like the crawl finally went away for a few years, at least locally, and then came back in 2016..hmmm, now what national emergency would have warranted that?

Yancey Ward said...

The ticker has long been a feature of ESPN. At the beginning, the ticker there was quite useful if you were a sports fan- you would get an update of the scores and results for sporting events, and it would turn over every couple of minutes. However, starting about 5 or 6 years ago, the tickers on ESPN became polluted with extraneous stats from the games, like so and so's yards rushing/passing, or so and so's sacks, hits, homeruns, goals etc. It is so bad that it takes 10+ minutes or more to run through the scores. I quit turning ESPN on at all, much like CNN, MSNBC, and FoxNews.

mockturtle said...

Is there some way to stop the ridge-runner video from playing automatically when signing on?

traditionalguy said...

The FBI says it’s investigation of the bombed buildings on 9/11is still open. Therefore they refuse all question and keep all investigation results top secret. The FBI knows it’s job well.

Big Mike said...

Of all the things to contemplate as a consequence of 9/11, this has to be this has to be the most mundane.

Robert Cook said...

"I immediately said that this was an act of war."

But it wasn't. It was just a terrible crime and a terrorist act.

bagoh20 said...

I hate the crawl. It blocks serious content - boobs.

bagoh20 said...

"But it wasn't. It was just a terrible crime and a terrorist act."

I agree that they wage war illegally, but decades of bombings and armed conflict is not just crime? I mean, when you kill 3000 people in one day, you don't just call 911, pardon the pun.

bagoh20 said...

If your mindset forces you to call what happened on 9/11 the same thing as a single nut with a rifle in Walmart, you should notice a weakness with the definitions you hold. Al Qaeda was not a lone nut or even a gang of criminals. They were an international armed force, bent on attacking nations and their assets. They weren't in it for the money. They wanted conquest. That's an act of war.

Robert Cook said...

"If your mindset forces you to call what happened on 9/11 the same thing as a single nut with a rifle in Walmart, you should notice a weakness with the definitions you hold. Al Qaeda was not a lone nut or even a gang of criminals. They were an international armed force...(who) wanted conquest."

Not at the time. Bin Laden had no goal of "conquest," he just wanted to drive the U.S. out of Muslim lands in the Middle East.We drove their growth (and the birth of ISIS) by our rash response to 9/11.

Kevin said...

They wanted conquest. That's an act of war.

They wanted to take down the government of the United States.

Just like Jim Comey.

They wanted to crash the economy of the United States.

Just like Bill Mahr.

mikee said...

Dear Robert Cook, Your ongoing attempt to lay all blame at the feet of the citizens of the US for 9/11 is not only disgusting, it is historically incorrect, or at least historically ignorant, and at best is a purposeful, damn lie.

Accepting the concept that ethnicity is a reason to remove people from one's country is and has been odious for decades, even among the progressive eugenicists of the left who supported abortion because it eliminated black babies.

In short, Cook, go to hell.

Rick said...

Not at the time. Bin Laden had no goal of "conquest," he just wanted to drive the U.S. out of Muslim lands in the Middle East.We drove their growth (and the birth of ISIS) by our rash response to 9/11.

Cook's anti-Americanism is tiring. Jihadists aren't limited to the Middle East or anywhere else. They want Islam in control everywhere. They have a Medieval triumphalist worldview whereby Islam's domination signals their religion is the one true religion. Cook misstates Jihadist goals so he can justify blaming America.

Robert Cook said...

"Dear Robert Cook, Your ongoing attempt to lay all blame at the feet of the citizens of the US for 9/11 is not only disgusting, it is historically incorrect, or at least historically ignorant, and at best is a purposeful, damn lie."

How have I tried to "lay all blame at the feet of the citizens of the US for 9/11?" By restating what bin Laden claimed were his reasons and purpose?

No, that is not assigning blame.

However, our reckless and rash response to 9/11 was like stamping on a mound of ants...it failed to achieve any productive purpose, and served to anger many in the middle east to join Al Qaeda (or other groups) to fight back against the invading infidels, (as Americans would do in comparable circumstances, of course). It was, in fact, exactly what bin Laden counted on us doing, and what he knew we would do. Al Qaeda had (and has) no power to really hurt us, but bin Laden knew our military response would lead to our getting into a ruinously expensive years-long quagmire, damaging ourselves...as it has done. We played into his hands.

rcocean said...

God I hate the news ticker. In fact, I will often blank out the picture during an interview so I can avoid the constant, irritating distraction. Just one more reason to ditch cable news.

rcocean said...

CNN and MSNBC will often run "scrolls" below the screen to tell their dumbshit Liberal/progressive audiences what to think.

So, they'll have an interview with Michael Moore and show a continuous scroll:

"Moore says Trump is a dumbfuck"

rcocean said...

CNN is still running the scroll:

"Breaking News. Sources say Mueller Report will find Trump guilty of Collusion"

Rick said...

By restating what bin Laden claimed were his reasons and purpose?

It's revealing Cook accepts Bin Laden's stated motivations at face value but routinely engages in whatever level of conspiracy theorism is necessary to twist American motivations into something evil. To this crowd nothing is final until the America is at fault. Then the game is immediately over without further analysis.

It's like Dems counting votes.

narciso said...


there's a bit more to it,

http://www.jihadica.com/sayf-al-adl-and-al-qaidas-historical-leadership/

Qwinn said...

Cook: "How have I tried to "lay all blame at the feet of the citizens of the US for 9/11? By restating what bin Laden claimed were his reasons and purpose?"

You repeat what bin Laden claimed were his reasons and purpose to English audiences, while ignoring what bin Laden told audiences in the Middle East.

"Raymond Ibrahim, as a researcher at the Library of Congress, found a significant difference between Al Qaeda’s messages in English directed to a Western audience and al Qaeda’s Arab messages and documents directed to an Islamic audience. The Western-directed messages listed grievances as grounds for retaliation employing the "language of 'reciprocity.'" Literature for Islamic audiences contained theological motivations bereft of references to the acts of Western nations."

And even there, you only repeat the bits bin Laden said to English audiences that bolster the "America deserved it" narrative. For example, from bin Laden's 2002 "Letter to America":

"The second thing we call you to, is to stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you. (a) We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling's, and trading with interest.[15]"

Robert Cook said...

"It's revealing Cook accepts Bin Laden's stated motivations at face value but routinely engages in whatever level of conspiracy theorism is necessary to twist American motivations into something evil."

What does this even mean?

Gk1 said...

This was the last american crisis I bothered watching on t.v. I remember seeing the crawl become a permanent fixture on Fox & CNN and felt it so excessive and artificial it seemed surreal. If it wasn't for the horrific circumstances it almost seemed like an SNL sketch as 2/3'rds of the screen got gobbled up with cascading information. And it kept repeating itself! They were still trying to figure out who, what, where and the same scrap of info kept repeating as a crawl along the bottom and sides. This was the last crisis I ever bothered watching on t.v and have been on the internet ever since.

Robert Cook said...

"You repeat what bin Laden claimed were his reasons and purpose to English audiences, while ignoring what bin Laden told audiences in the Middle East."

I don't know what he told audiences in the Middle East, or how it might differ from what has been reported in our media about his stated motives.

Also, repeating bin Laden's statements does not mean I believe "America deserved it." It does provide some context to understand the motives for the attacks more meaningful than childish statements that "they hate us for our freedoms." We do interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, and have done so as a matter of course for many decades, (see General Smedley Butler's "War Is a Racket"). Our interference has been violent and destructive in many cases. However, this does not mean we deserve to be attacked violently in turn. The American people should not suffer for the behavior of our government or the corporate interests our governmet has loyally served. Ideally, we should demand that our government stop interfering in the affairs of other countries, and those responsible should be tried in courts of law.

Violence always begets violence, and the innocent on both/all sides are the ones who suffer most from the escalating violence.

Unknown said...

We had a brand new kitten that week. Tuffy looked all over for the words as they scrolled off of the screen. Our television was inside a sort of cubby, and Tuffy scrambled all the way around the TV looking for the words. Tuffy, incidentally, was a beautiful fellow with long white hair and bright blue eyes, named after this guy: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2001-09-24-0109240254-story.html

Big Mike said...

@Cookie, on 9/11/2001 I learned that Muslims want to kill me simply because I am an American. They don’t care about my ethnicity, any accomplishments I have had, any good works I have performed in my life, any charities to which I have contributed, anything. I am an American; they wanted me dead, and they still do. They also want you dead, Cookie, and as far as I am concerned they can have you. Hate-filled little twit that you are, I wouldn’t lift a pinkie finger to save your life, because you wouldn’t lift a finger to save anyone else. You’d be too busy trying to find a way to blame America for your misfortune.

Robert Cook said...

"@Cookie, on 9/11/2001 I learned that Muslims want to kill me simply because I am an American."

Muslims collectively? All or most of them? No, they don't. If you really believe that, that's just a reflection of your own paranoia and/or ignorance and bias.

chickelit said...

An even bigger TV news anniversary is coming up: ABC's Nightline started out as a nighttime extension of ABC news focussed on the Iran hostage crisis in the fall of 1979. Compelling and successful, ABC launched it as a program in the spring of 1980 (the hostage crisis was still ongoing). Prior to this time Americans didn't really tune into national news that late. Iran changed everything.

Radical Islam has been very good to the news industry: First it was the ones full of Shiite that got us hooked on 24/7 news; then we took a Ba'ath (First Gulf War I) and then it was the ones with the Sunni disposition. Maybe we'll have a Black Muslim crisis to keep the news mills fed with fodder.

chickelit said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
chickelit said...

In any case, Thomas Jefferson had the Muslim's number way, way back.

Big Mike said...

Muslims collectively? All or most of them?

Basically, yes.

No, they don't.

Yes they do. If they don’t, they need to go stop telling everyone that they do.

narciso said...

As did churchill having spent considerable time in india.