PBS came under scrutiny on Monday while airing annual program, “A Capital Fourth,” when they tried to mix in previously recorded material into the ‘live’ broadcast. The annual program promised to deliver live footage of the fireworks celebration at the United States Capital Building in Washington, D.C but instead was cut with old recordings added during the broadcast.
Viewers of the program in the D.C. area quickly realized that this footage was not a live broadcast as “the weather was unusually overcast for a July evening, but parts of the broadcast showed no signs of cloudy skies,” according to Variety. The incident was pointed out by viewers, and now PBS has released a statement apologizing for the epic fail.
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“Because this year’s fireworks were difficult to see due to the weather, we made the decision to intercut fireworks footage from previous ‘A Capital Fourth’ concerts for the best possible television viewing experience.” The statement continued, “We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.”
While PBS apologized, they still defended their decision to intercut previously recorded material during the broadcast on Twitter. The PBS account tweeted, “It was the patriotic thing to do.”
We showed a combination of the best fireworks from this year and previous years. It was the patriotic thing to do. #July4thPBS
— A Capitol Fourth (@July4thPBS) July 5, 2016
Some viewers clearly did not agree that this was the “patriotic thing to do.”
Happy #fake4th courtesy of @PBS #July4thPBS pic.twitter.com/QVz4KSlLQ9
— Michael Jaffe (@mjaffeumd) July 5, 2016
I guess we can’t let the citizens know it’s cloudy in the capitol of good ol’ USA. #July4thPBS
— Joseph Gruber (@JosephGruber) July 5, 2016
Do you think it was the right thing for PBS to do to broadcast previously recorded material?
