August 2007 Archives

When I worked in TV news in Knoxville, Tenn., it was the stuff that made news producers salivate: a local connection to a series of bombings in England. We immediately put a reporter on the next flight to London to interview two local teens who were injured. Wouldn't our competitors be jealous? Wouldn't we rule the local TV news market? After a series of high-fives all around, we watched in disbelief as another local station beat us by reporting that the teens were already on a plane headed home.

I hated when our newsroom got scooped on a story. It usually led to a heated debate about what to do next: Should we play catch up? Should we look for another angle? Or since we didn't have it in the first place, should we just label it insignificant and move on?

I think option three is what most mainstream media (MSM) decided to do when new media offered new ways of reaching people. The all-powerful MSM thought they had a lock on getting the message out. Their mantra seemed to be: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

In the beginning, most MSM saw the Internet and interactive media as nothing more than add-ons to their existing brands. Many still do. Those who have seen the light are playing catch-up because what they once viewed as "insignificant" is eroding their customer base by meeting consumers' "on demand" information and entertainment needs.

The situation has lots of MSM dropping big bucks to jump onto the new media bandwagon. The problem is the parade's already passed by. To catch up, it looks like MSM will have to wade through a lot of what the parade's horses left behind.

As I sit in front of my two computers, typing this post on one while checking my fantasy baseball statistics on the other, listening to music on iTunes while passively watching a basketball game on the TV five feet away and texting my friend about a funny thing I just read on his Facebook profile, I began to ponder the question of how the "connectivity of the new media" has changed what I read and watch and listen to.

So I tried to watch CNN for a bit. While doing nothing else. Apparently the only thing going on in the world is Michael Vick pleading guilty to dogfighting charges, although the text scroll hinted at other stories. That's right, a TV news network is giving me most of its news in text form. Talk about taking advantage of the medium.

Thanks to that cute little buzzword "connectivity," however, I was able to go back to the internet and quickly read, watch, and listen to the stories I wanted, right then, without commercials or pretty talking heads talking about one story for an hour. I was also able to check an email which provided links to a story about how the internet has stabbed TV news in the gut and is slowly turning the knife, as well as how Yahoo now allows people to send text messages from a computer, providing a quicker, more grammatically-correct way to bug your friends. I also checked and re-checked Facebook several times, set my fantasy baseball lineups, read various stories on various topics from various sources, and watched videos of dogfights on YouTube (so I can fully grasp the gravity of this Michael Vick thing, the horror). Did I mention I checked Facebook?

God help me if I ever get an iPhone.

The old media is like the parent that sets your curfew too early, won't let you date until you're eighteen and won't let you hang out with your friends because that lawn's not going to mow itself, damn it! The new media is like the cool parents spoiling their child, giving them whatever they want whenever they want it, except in this case, that's not a bad thing at all.

About a month ago, my neighbor Holly came over with her brand-spankin' new iPhone, and I'm not using the term "spankin'" lightly. That phone kicked my phone in the ass.

My cell phone is lame. It doesn't have a camera, it has stupid ring tones, and it doesn't connect to the Internet. The coolest thing about my phone is that it's blue and I don't even care because I wanted a pink one. I was scarlet with shame as I chicken-pecked her number into my address book and shuffled off pathetically to try and text someone. Anyone.

What is this obsession with new media? The super-charged connectivity of today's online world has altered our news-getting methods considerably.

Why watch the evening news when you can get hourly updates on your phone? Newspaper? Please, I get my news dot-com. Want to discuss current events? Blog it.

Are we getting carried away? Audiences are demanding news as shiny and edgy as their iPhone and news media are rushing to assuage the "news now" frenzy.
The content of news media isn't changing but our expectations are and that's where this new media revolution gets significant.

We're captivated by immediacy. Our attention span has been whittled away to a nanosecond and we put as much stock in the convenience of our media as we do in the content. As news stations compete to post the latest story at breakneck speed, we're right there clocking them.

Timeliness, while a journalistic virtue, should never override the value of content but when the new media on the market makes instantaneous information standard, we're trained to expect nothing short of immediate. As for me, I'm okay waiting for my news, even if it means I won't be reading it on Holly's iPhone.

Oh, iPhone. Why do you torment me with your commercials? I salivate when I see that lucky user reading the news on your beautiful display in the palm of his hand. I pine for your touch screen. I dream about you at night. I want to watch videos on you. I want to download podcasts to you. But sadly, I can't buy you. I can barely pay my rent.

And it's a shame, because the mainstream media is actually getting off to a good start in the iEra. Local newspapers are producing video content for their Web sites, because God forbid people actually read a news story anymore. Others are hosting chats about different topics so their readers can ask the questions they care about. Reporters are podcasting and blogging. CNN has gone mobile. Who watches TV anymore?

People are interested only in the news they want, and they want it now. For the most part, they're getting it.

The problem? I don't get to take advantage of all this new technology because I don't have $400 to spend on an iPhone. I'm so behind the times that I don't have a video iPod, I just have the old iPod mini (which was really cool back when I bought it, thank you). I just got rid of what I fondly called "the brick" and got a new cell phone, but I'm too cheap to buy one that has video capability, so CNN Mobile is out. Oh well, I'm not a Verizon Wireless customer anyway and I am NOT paying a fee to break the contract I have now just for CNN. Sorry. I eat Ramen noodles.

For once, it seems the media isn't trying to keep up with us. We have to keep up with the media… if we can afford it.

As we all head down the home stretch this semester, I pause to realize this will be my last.

So, with greatest wishes to all of my journalism brethren, I offer to you the 10 things I will miss most -- and least -- about the newsroom.

The top 10 things I WON'T miss about the newsroom:

• 10. The filthy keyboards. Seriously. Have you seen them? The nice brown crust is a reminder that you were not the first to enter this place, and will not be the last, either.
• 9. The spastic mice in the computer labs. Why can't they just click like they're supposed to? I've never been so dissatisfied with a peripheral.
• 8. The cameras, mics, and tripods. If it wasn't one, it was the others. It's amazing we got anything produced.
• 7. Those damn Sports talk guys. I mean, seriously?
• 6. Slack-jawed stares from 415ers who weren't even close to having a story idea. God I miss corporal punishment.
• 5. The Sandbar. Seriously, people, it was fun once. And only once.
• 4. The way they clean all the bathrooms in the building simultaneously -- and always right when I have to pee.
• 3. Slack-jawed passersby making me feel like a goldfish.
• 2. Parking. Tickets. Need I say more?
• 1. And, the thing I won't miss MOST about working in the newsroom: Tuning to Channel 31 at 5:30, and watching, with increasing despair at 7:30, 9:30 and 11:30, the 22 minutes of dead air that was supposed to be KUJH TV News.

There are others, I'm sure, but they're either less significant or so traumatic that I've blocked them out. Luckily, there are things that I will miss.

The top 10 things I WILL miss about working in the newsroom:

• 10. "Veggie lunch."
• 9. Carlena. My saving grace on more than one occasion. You were always able to cheer me up on those days when all seemed impossible. You'll be missed.
• 8. Emus. They're edible, ya know.
• 7. The Multimedia Newsroom Coordinators. Part fifth-year senior, part disgruntled employee all mixed together with a dash of sass. Friends, mentors, saviors: keep holdin' it down.
• 6. Watching Uncle Rick's co-instructors increasingly cede the stage, overpowered by Rick's caffeine-powered antics.
• 5. Anchoring with a baton-twirling, attention-deficit, obsessive compulsive, concealed-carry licence bearing, 9MM strapping, daughter of Dolly Parton's drummer weather girl. Jennifer Jones, you're too much.
• 4. Uncle Rick. You've been one of the best teachers I've had, in two of the best classes I've ever had. You've been a mentor and a friend. We'll always have Toronto. Congratulations on your retirement; The future classes don't know what they're losing.
• 3. My star reporting team on Friday. Jessica, I'll never forget you asking the woman on the phone if you could talk to "Sara Lee." Yelena, you're the queen of the unnecessary standup. I hope I see you both on CNN some day.

  Dick Nelson, you've kept me in line and picked up my slack on more than one freaky Friday. Thanks for teaching me the ropes of producing and enduring my stressful lack of time management skills. I hope you can find a Friday producer with as pronounced a penchant for baking as Crissy and I have had.

• 2. Being locked into Dole working on in-depths, late night Final Cut serenades, coffee runs, and musical choreography.
• 1. But finally, and most importantly, I'll never forget the talent, originality, and humor of my fellow newsies. I've never been part of a group of people so inexplicably original, complex, and diverse, but that got along so fantastically well. I'm proud to call each of you my friend.

Well, that's all folks. Goodbye newsroom. Goodbye college. I know success is inevitable for each of us. So, I'll leave with this wish: Drop a line every once and a while.

Get weather updates sent right to my cell phone? Umm, I think I would rather just look outside. Networks are trying to adapt to the latest technology, but they are changing far too slowly. When I interned at a station this summer, I signed up for text updates of the latest weather. Sure, it had nice pictures of the Doppler radar, but I wasn't getting these messages until the weather had already changed. It would have been more convenient to just bring an umbrella every day, and I could have saved my messages for more important updates—like what bar my friends would be attending.

A few years ago, streaming video was the greatest new thing since sliced bread. We have come a little further since then. I can now pay to download clips of an ESPN or Nickelodeon show to my phone, but it's something that has already aired on TV. When I'm riding in a car on my way to Illinois, I don't want yesterday's episode of SportsCenter. I want to watch the live version of the Cubs game, or at least behind-the-scenes specials that won't be shown on TV. Why would I pay for old news?

Networks are on the right track by opening their content up for podcasts and vodcasts, but they need to start moving at the pace of a cheetah, not a tortoise. Then, maybe I'll get the weather before it starts raining on me.

Yes, I admit it. I clicked on it. After all, it was described as the "best five second clip on the Internet." As a journalist, I had to investigate, but instead of great video, I got a prime example of why YouTube won't soon kill off TV news: fluff devoid of facts.

A quick check of the most viewed videos on YouTube for a recent week in August 2007 showed lots of fluff and very little substance. In fact, out of the top 40 most-viewed videos, the only "news" items were six sports clips and one clip of a 1994 C-Span interview with Dick Cheney. In all of these "pseudo-news" instances, the "citizen journalists" didn't even create the uploaded news. They just took it from a TV source. Under that scenario, all it takes to be a citizen journalist is a DVR. Search YouTube for "Minneapolis bridge collapse," you'll find the vast majority of videos listed were simply lifted from TV news broadcasts. Not quite citizen journalism at its best.

Local TV news stations and networks like CNN spend years building up credibility and trust with viewers by delivering real, factual news day in and day out. Looking for your news on YouTube is a bit like the Wild West. Anything goes. It's hard to tell what's real, what's altered and what's just plain wrong-which brings me back to "Dramatic chipmunk." The only thing worse than someone calling this the "best five second clip on the Internet" is that the facts aren't even right. This clip, which incidentally was lifted from Japanese TV, features a prairie dog, not a chipmunk. While YouTube may be a fun diversion, it has a long way to go before it's my trusted news source.

YouTube looks about as much like real news
as a chipmunk (right) looks like a prairie dog (left).

Let's just get one thing straight- YouTube is not Jesus. It doesn't need to be worshipped.

It's not going to be the savior of the human race; which is what you might think when you see some people falling all over themselves while they're talking about it.

Don't get me wrong, I love YouTube, and I'm not saying it's Satan either. There's a lot of great stuff out there. As far as citizen journalism goes, the videos shot on cell phones and with home video cameras are amazing. The fact that people are turning to YouTube instead of major news outlets for their information is a pretty telling statement about how people have come to view traditional media.

But there are problems with YouTube. What happened to getting your news from an (allegedly) objective third party? How credible is a piece of information that appears on a Web site with videos of skateboarding dogs, people puking and a guy who dresses in drag, calls himself Kelly and talks about shoes ("Oh my God, shoes"). When you can upload whatever you want, who's there to fact check your information?

YouTube now has more visitors than MySpace. Wasn't MySpace the next big thing once? Beware, YouTube. Lots of newspapers and networks are developing great Web sites, and News Corp and NBC Universal are coming after you with what's being called the "YouTube Killer." TV shows, movies and online news from (more) credible media outlets? Could be the next next big thing, and I might say a little prayer that it happens.