John Matthews
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON — (WMAL) There was something fishy with the fireworks shown on PBS Monday night.
On a damp, cloudy night, when the bombs bursting in air were largely obscured by low hanging clouds and it was tough to spot even the top of the Washington Monument, the “live” fireworks shown on TV during the annual airing of the A Capitol Fourth concert were the envy of any tourism tableau, with huge blossoms of fire cascading over the Mall on a clear moonlit evening.
Clearly, something was amiss. As soon as the show ended, the concert’s producers tweeted out a confession.
“We showed a combination of the best fireworks from this year and previous years. It was the patriotic thing to do,” they claimed.
Many didn’t see it that way – at least in the Twitterverse.
“How is using stock video patriotic?,” asked one Tweeter. “If I wanted that, I’d watch YouTube,” he added.
People really seemed to take the visual sleight of hand personally.
“Feeling personally victimized by @PBS and #capitalfourth for using stock firework footage,” wrote one woman. “It’s cloudy and gross today, not perfectly clear.”
Others felt the show should have at least acknowledged the obvious. The stock footage included shots of the Capitol without the construction scaffolding that has been in place for many months.
“@July4thPBS should have at least let viewers know ‘some portions pre-recorded’”, wrote one viewer.
Copyright 2016 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (PHOTO: “A Capitol Fourth”/PBS via screencap)
