NEW YORK -- "Virtual" war erupted between two TV networks Thursday as NBC demanded CBS stop using digitally-created images like the logo that blocked out NBC's huge video advertising screen in Times Square during New Year's Eve broadcasts.
NBC said it was "shocked and outraged" at CBS's action and the flap also put veteran CBS anchor Dan Rather at odds with his own bosses over the technological sleight of hand which was visible only on TV screens and not to revelers actually in Times Square.
"We have initiated a dialogue at the highest level with CBS News to ensure this practice is short-lived," said Dave Anderson, vice president at NBC's cable cousin CNBC, which markets and maintains the Astrovision screen.
"We are shocked and outraged that CBS News used digital imagery to alter and block out images in public places," he said of the CBS broadcast in which Rather appeared on screen with CBS' seeing-eye logo behind him superimposed on the building housing the NBC screen.
A source at NBC's Rockefeller Center headquarters said the network was looking into legal options regarding possible loss of advertising revenue as a result of CBS' action. "Why didn't they just move Dan Rather?" the source told Reuters.
Rather himself weighed into the controversy Thursday in an interview with The New York Times, in which he said he regretted the TV trickery, saying it was "a mistake."
"At the very least we should have pointed out to viewers we were doing it," he said. "I did not grasp the possible ethical implications of this and that was wrong on my part."
However, CBS News president Andrew Heyward defended the use of such new technology -- something CBS has also been doing recently on The Early Show, in which the network's logo has appeared on buildings and even horse-drawn carriages around the Central Park area where the show is broadcast.
"I think covering the jumbotron (actually Astrovision) was an aggressive move that naturally is going to put some noses out of joint," he told TV critics in California. "I think reasonable people can disagree as to whether it is an appropriate use of video technology."
Asked whether he believed it was deliberate deception on CBS's part, Heyward said: "The answer is no, I don't think it was. This is part of the evolution of graphics. They get more and more sophisticated ... it does raise new issues."
For media watchers, the issue raised ethical questions.
"This is a slippery slope CBS has gotten on to and it could have big consequences as far as its news credibility," said Jim Naureckas of the media watchdog FAIR.
"At some point, you must draw the line -- getting the toe of this technology into programming that is news is dangerous. News outlets are in the business of making money from sponsors and if they find new ways to sell sponsorship, there is big pressure to do it.
"If the president is at a ribbon-cutting in Iowa, why not put a billboard behind him advertising a sponsor? Why not put T-shirts on crime victims?" he asked.
Naureckas, editor of FAIR's publication Extra, recalled recent flaps in which news publications apologized for changing photographs. Time magazine took criticism for a cover picture of ex-football player and murder defendant O.J. Simpson, which was altered to make him appear darker.
The Long Island newspaper Newsday once cobbled together separate photos of Olympic skaters Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan, to make it appear they were together on the ice after Harding was accused of trying to cripple her rival. The Washington Post was criticized for air-brushing an obscene slogan on a T-shirt out of a photograph.
And ABC News apologized a few years ago for a segment in which reporter Cokie Roberts was said to be reporting from Capitol Hill, when she was in fact in the network's Washington bureau in front of a photograph of the Capitol building.
