On 9/11, the cable news networks added a news crawl at the bottom of the screen. In those days and weeks after 9/11, it was a very good thing to have, because it gave us updates throughout the day and made you think you were involved. But after a while they seemed like just more screen clutter, another sign that TV networks wanted to look like web sites, and another reason why so many people have ADD. Now it looks like one of the channels has gotten rid of the crawl.CNN has not only changed their on-screen graphics and fonts, they've also gotten rid of the news crawl. There's still text at the bottom of the screen though. Instead of the crawl CNN now has changing info about the news story they are talking about, reactions from viewers, Twitter and Facebook comments from viewers, etc.
I think this is a good thing. I'm not sure what value having a bunch of comments from viewers at the bottom of the screen is, but I like that there isn't news coming at me from all over the place. It's rather retro. I bet some teenagers can't even remember a cable news channel before the crawl.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-19-2008 @ 6:09PM
StillBash said...
How about a screenshot?
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12-19-2008 @ 7:11PM
Justin said...
I'm 26 and I can't remember cable news before the crawl.
I also didn't realize that the crawl started after 9/11. Thanks for teaching me something TV Squad.
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12-19-2008 @ 7:34PM
S said...
I'm 20 and also had no idea the news crawl started on 9/11. I suppose you can now go to Headline News for the equivalent of a crawl, but I'm a fan of snippets news being thrown at me 200 times per hour. If something seems interesting, I can always look it up later that day.
In general, I liked the crawl, although I did end up rolling my eyes at a lot of the "news" they sent through it. When distracted at the gym, the CNN crawl was always something to look at that wasn't a sitcom or the Big Ten Network (don't get me started on the existence of the Big Ten Network).
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12-19-2008 @ 7:39PM
Daniel M said...
I did not know that, im 16, an i found that quite suprsing. I actually read a wiki on it. Though that is not the point of the article, here it is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_ticker
I don't mind the crawl, i see it when i see it, but having the whole screen for my viewing pleasure with minimal interference is better
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12-19-2008 @ 11:14PM
md said...
Bring back the crawl. Its better because sometimes your just not interested in the story or more comments from the viewers.
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12-20-2008 @ 2:48AM
Will said...
I'm old enough to remember CNN before the crawl. What always bugged me about it was that if you flipped over to CNN just before they went to a commercial, they would cut off the info halfway thru something & I was always missing a name or other revelant info, then you had to wait til they came back to get the rest of it. A minor complaint, I know, but it was a little annoying. I'm kind of suprised they kept it this long, most things on tv change faster than that.
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12-21-2008 @ 2:52AM
Mags said...
I remember watching the Bloomberg channel back in HS and college pre 2001 and there were news-tickers extant before then, even if they weren't on CNN.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that they "are another reason why so many people have ADD", though. I wouldn't push too far in that direction as one starts to sound a little Tom Cruisey--
http://www.entertonement.com/clips/8643/Tom-Cruise/Scientology/Drugs/You-Have-to-Evaluate-Like-I-Have
but certainly one shouldn't jump to conclusions unnecessarily either.
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