When ski resorts lack snow, they have machines that they can turn on to make it. Manmade snow is not nearly as nice to ski on as the real stuff, but it keeps the ski resorts in business.

WLS in Chicago did their own version of manmade snow yesterday during their newscasts.

Despite the fact that it was not snowing in the Chicago at the time, behind the anchors you could see quite a bit of the white stuff (as anchors like to call it).

Robert Feder writes that a cheesy animated graphic of snow was superimposed over a bright blue depiction of the city. Even though there was no real snow falling there at the time — it had all moved south and east by then — the obvious visual message was that Chicago was being blanketed.

WLS officials insisted there was no effort to mislead viewers.

“It was a choice to use a graphic representation, and we think our viewers are smart enough to be able to discern the difference,” said Jayme Nicholas, a station spokesperson. “We think it was very clear that it was not a live shot.”

So now we have a TV Anchor with plastic hair, sitting behind a plastic desk, in front of a plastic picture of the city, with fake snow coming down.

And to think, some people say that TV news is shallow.

The nerve.