President Obama called for a calm response to the St. Louis Grand Jury's decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson Monday night. He appealed for the words of Mike Brown's family to be heeded. He broke new ground, in the traditionally cautious realm of presidential statements, in admitting that yes, there is a problem with racially-charged situations like this shooting in America. "There is inevitably going to be some negative reaction, and it's going to make good TV," he said.
But you may not have heard a lot of that, because nearly all stations carrying the message did so as a split screen with scenes of smoke or tear gas (depending on whom you believe) erupting in Ferguson, and a police car overturned by a few protesters.
Twitter was abuzz about the strange juxtaposition:
As President @BarackObama called for peaceful protests, @CNN splitscreen showed a haze of tear gas rising in Ferguson pic.twitter.com/LuZOla15vd— Alex Howard (@digiphile) November 25, 2014
Three news networks right now. That Obama/Ferguson split screen is so surreal pic.twitter.com/QiaRgG0jo1— Amanda Wills (@AmandaWills) November 25, 2014
The split-screen is not doing the President any favors.— Jonathan Capehart (@CapehartJ) November 25, 2014
Ironic split screen as Obama calls for peace. pic.twitter.com/2Xb0J9Zz1X— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) November 25, 2014
As POTUS calls for nuance from the police department there's AN ARMORED TRUCK MOVING INTO POSITION ON SPLIT SCREEN. pic.twitter.com/HOFcbR4vpo— Danny Parkins (@DannyParkins) November 25, 2014
MSNBC's split screen of Obama babbling on the right and cats trying to overturn the cop car on the left is THE image of the night.— Your Old Craig (@CraigSJ) November 25, 2014
The optics, as they say, were not good for the President. But what did this, the first time the president has had to share a split screen on live TV since Bill Clinton's State of the Union had to compete with an OJ civil trial verdict, actually mean? A fitting symbol for a lame duck president? Proof that nobody can magic up a solution? Proof that the media has mastered the art of deadpan irony? Or just plain bad timing?
One thing was for sure: whatever you decided the answer to that question was, this was a good night to tweet with an attached photo.
It may also be worth mentioning, however, that this wasn't the networks' first use of split screen all evening, according to this prediction -- as it turned out, an ironic one:
CNN approaching peak split-screen. pic.twitter.com/A7gMgaoiU4— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) November 25, 2014
Split screen: a white guy lectures abt evidence on 1 side, while riot cops ready for possible riot against injustice on other. Says it all.— Sam Chaltain (@samchaltain) November 25, 2014