TV news programs often use visual gimmickry to try and make complicated issues a little easier to digest (think CNN’s “magic wall”).
Sometimes, however, things can go too far.
This week we saw two segments–one on MSNBC and one on ABC–which seemed to make the issues they were trying to explain even harder to understand.
First up was MSNBC’s Richard Lui, who was explaining a scam used by felons to try and secure taxpayer dollars. The segment featured Lui filling out IRS forms, and some poor stagehand pulling a string to make a piece of paper rise up from the floor:
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The second was from ABC News’ Jon Karl, who explained the 2011 federal budget using pennies… to create an enormous pie chart: