Kyra Phillips, or someone in the control room, did it on purpose

[jmowreader]

The whole "bathroom break during the pResident's speech" thing.

Either she did it unilaterally, someone at CNN directed her to do it, or the White House asked CNN to come up with something quick.

Notice a neat effect of her going off to pee, check her hair and makeup, straighten her jacket, complain about her control-freak sister-in-law, etc: it has COMPLETELY knocked the contents of Bush's speech out of the public eye.

I've seen the footage of the incident. Notice the gain on Kyra's mic just keeps going up and up and up...neatly drowning Shrub out in the process. Also notice that this is a professional news organization (you know, one that earns money) that uses pro-grade audio equipment. Every professional audio console has a mute button on every input channel. They could have dropped Kyra off the air with the flick of a finger. They didn't. What's up with that?

Aside from that, it's pretty funny that CNN would send an anchor to cover a pResidential address and the anchor would go to the can while the pResident was speaking.

[Skidmore]

1. Or, maybe she just had to pee.

[chimpymustgo]

2. But the OP makes a good point about the length of time her comments were

on the air...live.

NO ONE IN THE CONTROL ROOM WAS AWAKE? Truly, that should not have lasted more than a couple of seconds. Sure, anchors keep on the wireless mikes, and occasionally forget to turn them off, BUT once that extraneous audio is noticed, her mike should have been killed.

I had not given that much thought, but the basic premise is hard to argue with - and the point about the audio gain. I was amazed at how clearly we could hear Kyra.

Still, I'm not sure what the point was, who did it and why...but someone seems to have done it intentionally.

[rman]

11. How does that explain it being live on the air,

and the increase of the mike volume? During Bush's speech, no less.

I imagine media presenters, technicians etc go pee all the time just like the rest of us. It's not usually on the air though, as you might have noticed.

Don't you agree that her going to pee is the least significant aspect of this?

[A-Schwarzenegger]

3. Karl Rove directed it from ex-planet Pluto.

[shadowknows69]

4. Good analysis

Spot on about CNN's ability to dump her quick. They must have wanted as much of it to play as they did.

<edit> Old radio guy here and most stations have a delay dump and certainly all tv does since the Jackson Boob incident. Just so you know I'm not talking out my ass.

[Jackpine Radical]

5. The most amazing thing is tat these are times when

apparently otherwise sane people find themselves seriously entertaining notions like this. I don't buy the theory, but only because it just seems such an unlikely way to accomplish the purpose. Who would think of this on the spur of the moment & engineer it? Who would order it? This just isn't the kind of thing people would practice in order to get the timing right.

But I certainly don't discount the notion that the press wold be complicit in doing whatever they're called upon to do in support of the chimp.

And by the way--did the infamous Bush back-bulge issue from the '04 debates ever get answered to anyone's satisfaction?

[Ian David]

6. Ever see Police Squad with Leslie Nielsen?

It's funnier on the version that hasn't been edited for television.

[LiberalArkie]

7. Nope, the audio guy was listening in. He thought it was in audition

(preview), but had it on the AIR. Happens all the time. Not the bathroom stuff, but a newsman and someone talking back and forth. In the control room, it is sometimes hard to tell what is air and what is audition. You will still catch someone cueing up a tape.

[chimpymustgo]

8. When have you EVER heard something like that stay up for so long?

And Kyra was NOT on the air - as soon as the audio guy heard her mike, he would have killed her channel from the control room. There was nothing to
preview.

Now maybe he heard it, and wanted to make an ass out of Kyra. But he heard it. And he let it run.

[Billy Burnett]

9. That's what I think too. Someone hit the Control Room Solo switch ...

... and (most likely) wasn't aware that her mic bus feed to the mains was still on. A major screw up, but quite easy to do in a control room. Probably, everyone in the control room including the person responsible for monitoring the mains feed was into listening to her and not W*'s speech.

[jmowreader]

10. No one at CNN Atlanta was listening in?

Every television station--from your basic 50,000-watt "local news and old reruns" station to a national powerhouse like CNN--has a television that plays the station from a receiving antenna. This is how they know what the viewers are receiving, and that the transmitting antenna hasn't fallen into the alley or something.

SOMEONE had to notice that Kyra was upstaging the village idiot.