As the president assured the nation that we could overcome the divisions on display in Ferguson, Mo., networks ran a split-screen image of looters burning part of the city to the ground.
“It will be an image that may endure beyond Barack Obama’s tenure: The president calling for calm on one side of the TV screen; the scene in Ferguson, Mo. escalating with sirens, smoke, flash grenades, and furious residents on the other,” the National Journal wrote. “Even as the president spoke, it felt as if the situation on the ground in Ferguson was beginning to spiral. And viewers could be forgiven for becoming transfixed by the pictures and tuning out Obama’s calls for calm.”
Indeed, the misdeeds on display in Ferguson almost seemed to respond to Obama’s address.
“The president pointed out that progress could not be made by ‘throwing bottles’ or ‘smashing car windows,'” the conservative Daily Caller pointed out. “However, simultaneous Fox News cameras showed protesters rocking a police car back-and-forth in a split-screen alongside the president’s comments.”
The New Yorker’s Philip Gourevitch was unmerciful.
“Split screen: Obama’s extremely tepid call for calm & ferguson street flaming,” he tweeted. “And he says negative reaction ‘will make for good TV.'”
Obama has fallen victim to the split-screen shot before — albeit in a very different form — during his first 2012 debate with Republican opponent Mitt Romney, where he looked disengaged as Romney spoke. It’s a trope of cable news that presidents — and candidates — loathe.
After his disastrous performance in Denver, Obama staged a comeback. “This is on me,” he said — but other presidents have pointed fingers at the media after a split-screen ambush.
George H.W. Bush staged perhaps the most memorable battle against the split-screen 25 years ago. On Dec. 21, 1989, networks aired video of the president laughing with reporters alongside images of bodies of U.S. Marines killed in Panama.
No. 41 was not happy.
“‘I got a lot of mail after the last press conference,'” Bush said in 1990, as the Chicago Tribune reported. ” … ‘I had some calls because when I was speaking here in this room juxtaposed against my frivolous comments were some-a split-screen technique that showed American lives, the bodies of dead soldiers in caskets, dead soldiers coming home.’
“His voice filling with emotion, Bush said, ‘They thought their president, at a solemn moment like that, didn`t give a damn, and I do, I do.’ Bush appealed to the networks to warn him in the future when use of the split-screen technique is anticipated.”
Indeed, images of bodies returning to Dover Air Force base were banned in 1991 — for the next 18 years.
Underlying any criticism of a split-screen moment is an incontrovertible fact: Commanders-in-chief are not the ones directing news broadcasts. They can control what they say — they can’t control the optics.
The National Journal seemed inclined to give Obama a break.
“In truth, there was little that Obama, or anyone in his position, could do,” the Journal wrote. “The tension had been building for days — and few on the streets were paying any attention to the president.”
Watch his whole speech here:
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