CNN Misrepresented Election Night Images as Holograms

By Noel Sheppard | November 07, 2008 | 11:00

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For years, NewsBusters and its parent the Media Research Center have euphemistically made the case that press outlets use smoke and mirrors to present the news they want viewers to see, hear, read, and, most importantly, believe.

No finer example occurred than during CNN's Election Night coverage when three dimensional images of folks not actually on the set with Wolf Blitzer were presented to the viewing audience as "holograms" (video below the fold).

As CNN.com reported Thursday (photo courtesy CNN.com):

It was an election night like none other, in every sense of the phrase. In addition to the obvious -- the selection of the nation's first black president -- Tuesday night's coverage on CNN showcased groundbreaking technology.
"I want you to watch what we're about to do," CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer told viewers early in the evening's coverage, "because you've never seen anything like this on television."
And he was right. Cue CNN political correspondent Jessica Yellin.
"Hi Wolf!" said Yellin, waving to Blitzer as she stood a few feet in front of him in the network's New York City studios. Or at least, that's the way it appeared at first glance.
In reality, Yellin -- a correspondent who had been covering Sen. Barack Obama's campaign -- was at the now president-elect's mega-rally along the lakefront in Chicago, Illinois, more than 700 miles away from CNN's Election Center in New York.
It looked like a scene straight out of "Star Wars." Here was Yellin, partially translucent with a glowing blue haze around her, appearing to materialize in thin air. She even referenced the classic movie on her own, saying, "It's like I follow in the tradition of Princess Leia. It's something else."

Pretty snazzy, yes?

However, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, this wasn't what CNN claimed:

CNN's US election night stunt, in which reporter Jessica Yellin and rapper will.i.am appeared on set as three-dimensional "holograms", was little more than smoke and mirrors, physics experts say. [...]
Blitzer made every attempt to hide the fact that the hologram was fake, saying "Jessica, you're a terrific hologram" and that he liked the hologram because "we can have a more intimate conversation".

Yellin likened herself to a character from Star Wars, saying, "It's like I follow in the tradition of Princess Leia." [...]
But Hans Jurgen Kreuzer, theoretical physics professor and holography expert at Dalhousie University, told CBC news in Canada that the so-called holograms were simply 2D images superimposed onto the TV broadcast.

The images were in fact tomograms, or images captured from all sides - in this case by 35 high-definition cameras set in a ring inside a special tent - reconstructed by computers and displayed on the screen.

A real hologram would have meant the images were projected into space, which did not occur as Blitzer and Cooper could not see their interview subjects. [...]

To perform its stunt, CNN used technology from Vizrt, based in Norway, and SportVu, based in Israel.

In an interview with Norwegian publication DagensMedier, Vizrt technical director Ole Jacobsen said that, contrary to CNN's claims, "it's not technically a hologram", which would be the company's "next challenge".