Essays: January 2007 Archives

I visited YouTube the first time after a friend referred me to the site. He posted a video clip of my roommate after she apparently had too many sake bombs one Saturday night. He videotaped her wildly raising her arms up and down while pretending to be a drummer using her chopsticks. I laughed hysterically, and brightened my other friends' days by referring them to the video, as well. From then on I visited the site for other entertaining video clips that I heard I just "had to see."

Although the site is mostly filled with amateur video, television stations are catching on to the popularity of YouTube. NBC just made a deal with YouTube that would allow them to show video clips of scenes from the network's Saturday Night Live. Warner Brothers Music also made a deal with YouTube. So, rather than cowering in fear that the popular site will take over the traditional media outlets, those outlets are getting in on the action. These deals ensure YouTube doesn't have to worry about copyright infringement with these companies, and in return, the companies get in on the advertising profits. Although both these companies focus more on entertainment rather than newsworthy videos, I do see deals involving news coverage coming in the future.

In one sense, YouTube could help television news. In many instances, I have gone to the site if I missed an exciting clip from a Television news show that "everyone's talking about." But no matter what, America will still turn to their TV sets for serious what's-going-on-in-the-world news coverage. With all the crazy videos shown on YouTube, it will be hard for web surfers to take it seriously.

So, should America's journalism students be in fear that their audience's interest in television news may soon go out the window? No. A bigger worry would be friends with video cameras during their next, drunken rock band audition.

While at work last week a co-worker showed me a video on YouTube from one of our sister stations of an anchor dropping an "F" bomb on air. We have been mocking that anchor ever since.

While watching that video I realized that YouTube is a source of entertainment but not a source of serious news. The home page of YouTube last Wednesday had no video about the State of the Union address; and it didn't have any video pertaining to the war in Iraq on the homepage.

News is news; and entertainment is entertainment. The next generation will look at funny videos on the internet just like me, but when it comes to the serious news people will flip on the real tube to get their information.

Online video use has been on the rise for years; but let's get serious: Online video use is no where near the use of the TV. Beyond that, news networks, like CNN, are integrating funny YouTube videos into their shows, unlike YouTube — who is not including serious news onto its site. If you want to see the news and the best of YouTube just turn on your TV and get it all at once.

The next time I am in for a good laugh I will load up YouTube, but until then I, along with the majority of America, will flip on the real tube to get my news and information.

The video shows a man clad in an executioners mask placing a stiff rope around Saddam Hussein's neck. My stomach tightens because I know what will come next. A brief pause and the most deranged megalomaniac of the last 50 years is put to death.

This clip was not shown on any major network newscast. The picture of a lifeless Saddam did not grace the cover of any newspapers. But, thanks to YouTube, the video is available in all its unedited glory for those with the interest and tolerance.

Apparently, I am not the only one who wanted to witness such an event. On the day I viewed the video, it had recorded more than two million views. It created such an outrage in Iraq that the president has ordered an investigation.

This is one of the many interesting voids that has been filled by the YouTube phenomenon. Interlaced between the videos of college students setting themselves on fire and fainting goats, users have access to serious information often deemed too racy for broadcast on the nightly news.

Not all the news content on YouTube is serious. The majority of items found in the news category feature crazy moments caught on air rather than serious reporting.

The threat of these videos to traditional newscasting is almost non-existent. Many larger news stations such as KSHB-41 in Kansas City offer video clips of their news stories for free online.

Placing news stories online is the next logical expansion for broadcast news. On their own website the station has the ability to beef up the story with added online elements, something that is not possible on YouTube.

YouTube does however have a place in the modern media market. There will always be questionable material that doesn't make it onto a newscast, and an amateur with a camera who has already posted it online.

YouTube forced me to break a college student's anti-viewing vow.

For years I've declined watching virtually all TV; but, I did give in and allow myself to see a few clips (via YouTube) of shows I'd been reading about.

But seeing clips of programs like "The Colbert Report" or HBO's "Deadwood" on YouTube was just a tease. Tiny, grainy, 4-minute video clips on my laptop weren't enough. I had to have my Colbert fix with new episodes each night. But it would cost me.

I would have to pay more than $40 each month for the privilege of cable TV. YouTube had broken my self-imposed anti-TV fast and drawn me into television for the first time since afternoon Scooby-Doo reruns 20 years ago.

In the end, I paid the money. Sigh.

See, this is why copyrighted video should not be banned from YouTube and why the site won't replace broadcast and cable TV. Until YouTube somehow starts creating content of the same quality as other media, I (and lots of others) will definitely go to the content creators after getting a taste online.

YouTube is the way the Internet should be. It's a flea market: I know I can find a fake Rolex there, but if I can afford a real one, then I'll get that instead. Plus, YouTube gives more word-of-mouth advertising than a full-page ad in the New York Times ever could. Vote for your favorite Super Bowl commercial after the game — which means thousands of more views for the ads— all via YouTube.

YouTube will remain the home of grainy, badly recorded clips of TV programs I'd rather see on my nice LCD television. And will a cell phone video shot by a bystander replace the professionally reported and edited content that news organizations give us?

I doubt it. Let YouTube remain a black market where we can poke through pieces of every news story and TV clip we want. Eventually, we'll go to the real thing.

My grandpa taught me that there are two ways to lose at pool: Your opponent can beat you or you can beat yourself. I used to shoot against him in his basement. The cue ball danced when he shot.

That old man beat me a lot. But, as a young player, I beat myself just as much by not paying attention to my "leave" or by sinking the eight ball accidentally.

I've applied grandpa's lesson to much of my life. Sometimes you just get beat and there isn't much you can do about that. Learn and move on. But, when you beat yourself, it's time to take a serious look at how you're playing. TV news, and any number of other journalists, could stand to play a game of pool against my grandpa.

The internet, YouTube, instant access to videos like Hussein's execution, and blogs aren't killing TV news. The television folks are committing ritual suicide by banging their heads against the wall. They keep doing the same thing while their audience stays old, their ratings drop, people lose faith in their product and the media landscape steadily changes.

Listen to the chant: "That which was, always will be. That which is, always was. Oohhmm…"

TV news ratings started dropping before the Internet was in full swing. Before YouTube and blogs, people were turning away. The rise of internet news and entertainment just made the trend more obvious.

The internet media will crawl out of their infancy faster than we can imagine. When that happens, the old television media won't just be beating itself anymore; the new media will pound it senseless unless it adapts.

YouTube isn't killing TV news. TV news is killing TV news.

Friends I visit regularly in Chicago — who make it a point to know about everything cool before everyone else — introduced me to YouTube long before it was an international sensation or topic in journalism classes. I don't explore the site too often in my normal life here in Kansas; but, every time I drop into the Windy City, I'm always exposed to at least a couple baffling, hilarious, disturbing, bizarre videos. Videos brought to us all by the world's foremost provider of…well, baffling, hilarious, disturbing, bizarre videos.

And that's where I found the gem linked to here, which is an actual television news report from the Mobile, Ala., local station. Long story short: It's about a leprechaun sighting. Watch it and despair with me — not for the man whose hopes I'm sure were eventually dashed when he uprooted the tree and did not find a pot of gold, but for the millions of Americans who, with a perfectly straight face, would refer to this retarded display as "news."

It's despicable that journalists could offer nothing better than this to the citizens of Mobile who sat down to watch the nightly news and find out what was happening in their community. I'm not saying that this clip is representative of TV news in general, but it seems an apt example of why more and more people are turning away from TV news infotainment and searching for other options.

A substantial body of communication scholarship has emerged in the past few decades that argues that the way television news presents – or more specifically, "frames" – the information it communicates to the public dissuades citizens from participating in their own representative democracy by encouraging them not to hold public officials accountable for public issues. Yes, I realize that's quite a lot to digest, so you might want to take it slowly – it's not exactly a leprechaun sighting. Start with these: A, B.

YouTube is not a replacement for TV news. Online news as we know it is not a replacement for traditional news — yet. But have faith. It eventually has to get better than this.