We Want Media

If you've ever seen Dateline NBC, you're probably familiar with the image of Stone Phillips or Ann Curry standing in front of the New York skyline, with the Empire State Building lit up just behind them.

Brian Montopoli's talk on transparency in the media got me thinking about this image again. I interned at Dateline a couple of years ago, and every week a PA would have to find out what color the lights on the Empire State Building were going to be on the night of air. Phillips's and Curry's intro segments weren't taped in some 30th floor studio; they were taped on the third floor in a windowless room during daylight hours, usually at least a day before the show aired. The image of the properly lit Empire State Building was added in the editing room.

I guess it's a subtle way to suggest that Dateline is live, like nightly news programs. This isn't a major gripe, but it always just struck me as a totally unnecessary layer of artifice.