In her response to the State of the Union address, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann looked into her Webcast camera but away from a second camera in the room, the “pool” camera, which supplied her presentation to the television networks and other global media.
The results were awkward for television viewers who watched the speaker looking off camera.
Earlier today in an interview at NBC News headquarters in Manhattan, we spoke with Mark Lukasiewicz – VP of NBC News for Specials and Digital – about the issue with the pool camera, which he explains in this interview. He calls the results “peculiar.”
While CNN and others broadcast rebuttal in full, neither NBC News or MSNBC did nor were they planning to do so. NBC was planning to air a live excerpt. The speech was late, however, because Bachmann’s car was delayed in traffic, behind the President’s motorcade, says Lukasiewicz, citing sources. As a result, the network live excerpt was nixed.
Although NBC did not carry any of the speech live, Brian Williams interviewed Bachmann exclusively immediately after her response webcast. The Williams interview was aired live in the last minutes of the NBC News special.
Lukasiewicz will be a participant in the Beet.TV Online Video Journalism Summit at the Washington Post on Tuesday, February 1. It will streamed live right here.
Andy Plesser
