Ashleigh Banfield and Nancy Grace (above) did not need that split-screen.
Gotcha! If one didn’t know that Turner TV’s news networks are trying to be serious you’d think of them as the TV homes of brilliant farce and satire.
As video documented by the site Atlantic Wire on May 7, CNN’s studio presented a split-screen chat with reporters/commentators Nancy Grace and Ashleigh Banfield, both in Phoenix covering the murder trial of Jodi Arias, although in Grace’s case, she doesn’t cover murders as much as she ghoulishly exploits them for her own and occasionally vulgar self-promotion.
Banfield is with CNN, Grace is with CNN sibling Headline News.
As the two checked in from their separate remote positions, it soon became apparent that they weren’t all that separated.
Judging from the identical cars that drove by in the background — just moments apart — the two journalists were standing just a few feet from each other, in the same parking lot!
Still, they spoke to each other and to the studio anchor no differently than as if one were at the North Pole, the other in South Ozone Park.
Regardless, both apparently heard each other in a slightly delayed form, their voices traveling to CNN headquarters in Atlanta — 1,590 miles away — then back, before they could hear what the other was saying from that lot in Phoenix, just a few steps from each other.
CNN’s deception, or decision, or however one would classify such news-bureau lunacy, did serve to create the impression that Turner/CNN news personnel were all over this murder trial — blanket, team coverage, even if the teams were just a few blankets apart.
Or perhaps Grace and Banfield anticipated the arrival of a trial-relevant news subject who, they had been tipped, would park in one of the lined spaces between them.
Then again, maybe each was just saving a parking space for a friend.
* * *
The warm, embracing maternal instinct of New York State government recently was demonstrated in a TV ad campaign urging folks to buy for their moms, as a Mother’s Day gift, New York State Lottery tickets.
Given that we’re all stuck with our own realities and perceptions, had I gifted my mother lottery tickets on Mother’s Day, she would have further wondered — only more deeply than usual — where she went wrong.
I wonder if the NYS Lottery has cards that come with such gifts:
“To Mom on Mother’s Day: My odds of being lucky enough to have you as my loving mom were one-in-a-million. Well, back at ya.”
Perhaps next year the NYS Lottery folks can put together and sell a Mother’s Day gift package: Ten scratch-offs, a pint of Hiram Walker and a pack of Luckies.
Father’s Day is coming. Truth is, I do think that my dad would have preferred lottery tickets to, say, a tie. He already had a tie, but he’d never won a million dollars. And never did.
I’m thinking that I’d much prefer that my kids, rather than buy me lottery tickets for Father’s Day, buy me absolutely nothing. While there are no TV ad campaigns encouraging children to buy their dads nothing for Father’s Day, nothing is a far more practical and cost-effective gift than lottery tickets.
While nothing lasts forever, in gift-form it might.
“Remember that time the kids got you nothing for Father’s Day?”
“Remember? How can I forget!?”
See?
Now I’m thinking that maybe there should be a Father’s Day ad campaign, complete with celebrity endorsements, urging people to show their love for their dads with the gift of nothing. “Hello, I’m Robert Wagner. . .”
So, kids, take it from an experienced dad: If it comes down to New York State Lottery tickets or nothing, this Father’s Day, show dad you care. Give the gift of love; give him absolutely nothing. Now on sale.