Your impression when tuning in to CNN's The Situation Room for the first time is likely to be, "Geez, there's a lot going on here."

There is. And much of it involves technologies familiar to internet regulars, but mostly unheard of in the context of TV newscasts.

Throughout the daily, three-hour show, a split video wall behind host Wolf Blitzer displays up to six separate feeds, often topically unrelated to each other.

I've been commenting to several people lately how I like The Situation Room's format. I think CNN is doing something right with it. It will be copied.

Ok, so I was poking fun at them when that worm took out CNN's newsroom..

The name of the program fits well with the environment they have set up for Wolf to do his broadcasts in. Wolf stands with his notes in front of a very large NOC style six-panel video screen displaying video coming in from the field, people he is interviewing, or anything else they have ready to go. It worked very well during the Katrina coverage. I get the impression that its easy to steer the show around in different directions as new video and information comes in. They break away often to review what's being said on the blogs about the major news stories.

It winds up having that exciting Philadelphia "action news" feel to it, not due to raised voices and rapid-fire delivery, but actual higher levels of information transfer. There are almost always several video feeds being shoved at the viewer, and you have a choice of what to look at that's more diverse than talking head vs. ticker at the bottom of the screen. Wolf does break into "Breaking News Tone" sometimes, but usually only when something new is coming in. When you have it on in the background, the cues for when you should pay attention seem honest. There are exceptions I've noticed, but there are always exceptions. Its a new format. If they catch on to the key thing -- keep it honest -- it will continue to be well received. Many people use the 24-hour stations as background noise/info. The subtly of switching into "Breaking News Tone" is enough to catch your attention. Anchors build up a level of trust with the listener if they do their job right. The tone of their voice matters. If you over do it, you wind up in the FoxNews trap, where you can't tell when something is actually worth paying attention to. You just go numb. Dynamics in the presentation of this stuff is key.

A perfect example of this is FoxNews's over use of the "Fox Alert" zig-boom sound. As documented in Outfoxed, the Fox News Alert sound was specifically designed to grab the attention of the viewer when they would break in with something new that was important. For awhile, it was used properly, and it worked. When it was used to key off a segment, viewers would draw their attention to the TV immediately. Eventually, they started to overuse the hell out of it, and it just didn't have the same effect anymore. If every time it was used, it was some kind of important breaking news, it would have held its power to attract people's attention. After so many times being used coming out of commercials, or to prefix entertainment news about two Hollywood idiots breaking up, it just lost its effect on the viewers. Now its just constantly occurring and completely annoying.

As a side note, the fellow who designed the Fox News Alert sound/video sequence also managed my friends' old band, Sunshine Flipside. Last I heard he was working at MTV while writing a book about using sight and sound together. Its a small world sometimes. Anyone remember how to spell Dave's last name? I think its Hnatiuk or something similar, but I'm pretty sure I'm wrong.

Wired News: CNN Hacks New TV Technology