Writing, Media & Blogs: May 2005 Archives
I just went to lunch with Leslie Dutton from Full Disclosure and shot a few promos for their series of video blogs -- which are really shaping up to be excellent. They get some of the biggest names in politics, especially in California, on camera and saying things they'll probably regret later.
Video blogging is still in its infancy, and won't be as easy as writing text until we have artificial intelligence software that can edit video automatically. Still, there are a few people out there producing great stuff that is often a lot more evokative than mere text. Evan Coyne Maloney may be the most famous; his videos are particularly entertaining, such as when he interviewed despondent Inaugeration protesters. Vidblogs.com bills itself as "the ultimate public voyer experiment" and links to hundreds of video bloggers. It's a fascinating niche, but I doubt that video will ever replace the written word, just as video phones have never really taken off.
Personally, it looks like too much work for me to get into. I'm lazy, and I already waste too much time writing nonsense; the last thing I need to do is spend hours filming and editing it. Plus, you can't "vlog" in your pajamas.
Nearly unnoticable in an article about Reuters outsourcing jobs is this nugget that sheds some insight into what Reuters considers "reporting".
[Global managing editor David] Schlesinger also said he was offended by the guild's suggestion - which the union has denied - that American journalists are superior to their foreign counterparts. The wire service remains committed to "on-the-ground reporting, but some stories can be done very well by telephone or by reading something on the Internet," he said from India.
(Emphasis mine.) Since when does "reporting" consist of reading something on the internet? Sounds more like blogging to me.
Update:
Yay, my second link from Best of the Web. Is James Taranto is less selective than Glenn Reynolds, or does he just have better taste?
It looks like even leftists are becoming disenchanted with the media. Although the post is about NPR selling out, Michael2 doesn't spare the mainstream media. (The "2" is so that I can refer to him without anyone thinking that I'm discussing myself in the third-person.)
"Daddy knows best" doesn't cut it in my world anymore, Mr. Dvorkin. In fact, as a child of the 1960s, it never really did. I began to lose confidence in my elected officials around 1974. The 2000 and 2004 elections haven't done anything to restore any of that lost confidence. They certainly haven't done anything to impress me with the accuracy, the objectivity, or the reliability of the mainstream media.I have found, however, that by using the power the internet gives me to seek out news and information from a variety of sources around the nation and literally around the world, I can often cobble together a better and more accurate picture, in less time, and without commercial interruptions to boot, than anything I could hope to see or read or hear from the "professional" journalists at NPR or CBS or The New York Times.
Michael2 doesn't mention any websites that he does trust for news other than Unbossed, to which he contributes. I suspect he doesn't frequent Matt Drudge as often as I do and that he's referring to news sites with a greater leftward lean -- and that's great! I doubt Michael2 and I would agree on much politically, but I'm happy to see that the core leftwing supporters of the "elite" MSM are reconsidering their allegiance. The only demographic that leaves them is the ever-shrinking pool of elderly folks who will consume broadcast and dead tree news till they die.
