Bob Schaffer, Prince of Darkness

One of the slick tricks of modern electronic journalism is to use lighting to "throw a bad light" on subjects the journalists do not like. Photo journalists sometimes photoshop photographs to make them black and white because black and white photos are less appealing. Television journalists have their own tricks.

Our colleague thoughtfully posted links to the Your Show videos of Bob Schaffer and Mark Udall. You all watched those, right?

Note that Mark Udall is well lit. Bob Schaffer, by contrast, is sitting in semi darkness with a light behind him to make the camera less able to focus on his facial lighting. It is hard to imagine a less attractive lighting setup. It is also hard to imagine that this wasn't intentional.

Another observation: Bob was a bit more verbose than Mark. By going last, we'd bet his long answers and bad lighting made part of the audience go away.