hmmm…..well what about helium?
Our old friend up in Albany, Mike Sechrist sent us a link to a great speech by John Temple, former editor and President of the now defunct Rocky Mountain News.
The Rocky Mountain News, which went out of business earlier this year after 150 years of publication was not only Colorado’s oldest newspaper, it was one of the best newspapers in the country, winning award after award for its journalism.
Temple’s insights are instructive, I think, because he understands that even though the paper knew what was happening, it was unable to react fast enough to get ahead of the ramifications of the new technology and own the change. Instead, it was always playing catch-up, and in half-hearted ways.
This ‘incrementalism’ is not solely the purview of The Rocky Mountain News, nor even of newspapers. Â
Almost every client we deal with is in a situation very similar to what the News faced, and almost every client reacts in the same way – they understand but they want to proceed slowly and in ‘their own way’. This conversation is almost universal, regardless of who the client is – newspaper, magazine or TV station or network.
It is not that they don’t understand what is coming. They simply want to go slowly…and in their ‘own way’. Â That is the death knell of their business.
My brother-in-law is a producer at MSNBC. And you have to give NBC credit. They at least understand what is coming and they are trying to come to grips with it. I am not inside NBC, but from what I can see from the outside, it is also too little too late.
My brother-in-law is going to classes in editing on desktop systems. Â NBC it seems wants to make everyone capable of doing their own editing.
Well, this is a good start. Â But NBC has opted for, as far as I can tell, the most obtuse and complicated editing software they could possibly find. Â This, I also find is fairly common. Â The engineering department examines all the parameters and either buys or commissions some very very complex (and expensive) software that requires more complex and expensive hardware that is generally chained (in a sense) to the desktops. Â
Pointless. And crazy. Crazy when you can buy Final Cut Pro and Mac laptops for a fraction of what I am sure NBC is paying. And that FCP software is not only powerful, it’s easy to use, intuitive and you can take the laptops home, or in the field. And I would bet that the difference between the off the shelf Apple software and hardware and what NBC has bought is more than enough to pay the rent at 30 Rock for a few years.
What NBC and MSNBC should do is they should give every member of staff small digital cameras and laptops with FCP and send them out of the building with the mandate to make content for the network. NBC, after all is a magnet for talent. People go to work there because they want to make television. It’s filled with creative people who have virtually  no access to the tools for making creative content. So empower them.  Give them the gear (and the training) and open the doors and say ‘go’!
It isn’t so hard.
Finally, I had to really laugh when I read a piece in Journalism.co.uk this morning.Â
It details how CNN is moving to create what it calls “all platform journalists”.
The killer here is all the gear that they make the All Platform Journalists schlep around.
OK, credit where credit is due. They are trying. But again, it’s that incrementalism. Â Too little, too late.
Here’s what they are asking their All Platform Journalists to take out to report stories:
CNN All Platform Gear:
-Sony Z1UÂ HD camera (changing to EX1/EX3)Â
-Canon still camera
-Flip cam
-MacBook Pro
-Smart phones
-Air card
-Sat phones
Hoo boy!Â
Now, let’s add in all the separate batteries, chargers, adapters, carrying cases and other assorted junk.
What do you think it weighs in at? Â A ton? OK, maybe less. But the bulk! Â
And the insanity. Â First, the Z1, while a nice camera is both heavy (really heavy) and dated. And it’s tape. So let’s not forget all the blank tapes you’ve got to schlep, as well as all the time to digitize them. Â We like the JVC 100 – light weight, super powerful and shoots to a card.
Next, the Canon still camera. Â Also weighs a ton and what the hell is that for? Â To take stills? For the CNN website no doubt. Â Well, they’re not publishing LIFE magazine, I don’t think, so why not just do a few screen grabs for the stills. I mean, it is digital and you are shooting 1080. Â Or if you are so driven by the stills, why not use a Nikon or Canon that shoots video and dump the Z1?
The mac is certainly admirable.
Flip cam? Â For what? Â You already have a video recorder. Â Why two? Â So you can ‘move fast’. Listen to me, no one schlepping all that crap is moving fast.
Laden down with all this gear, you are going to need to give everyone a hummer just to move all the crap you have burdened them down with. Don’t forget the chargers! And adapter plugs.
Pretty soon, Jon Klein, President of CNN will be giving the same kind of speeches that John Temple is giving these days. Â You can call it, ‘too little, too late’.
3 Comments
Michael Rosenblum October 02, 2009
well of course the mobile phone has a video camera built in for that.
It’s just that these guys love to over-engineer.
When I did NY1 (a million years ago), we decided on the Hi8 cameras.
Admittedly marginal, but light weight. That was the idea.
The engineers (who had come from WCBS) went with it grudgingly.
They argued with each purchase and finally, we got into it over the batteries.
They wanted to equip the cameras with those big Bauer blocks – do you remember those?
Anyway, we had pushed them so far on so many things that Paul Sagan said, “give them what they want on the batteries”.
Of course, their arguments were about durability, ability to recharge and so on.
We gave them the bauer blocks.
The blocks of course required massive chargers the size of a small refrigerator.
The bigger heavier batteries also required much bigger and sturdier tripods. The batteries weighed more than the camera! Then the tripods meant fluid heads. The weignt of the tripod and fluid head meant a bigger bag… you get the idea… on and on and on. Like a cancer. Fred Friendly used to call this phenomenon one-degreeitis By the time we were finished, they had handcarts to drag all the crap around.
$ October 02, 2009
Maybe the flip-cam is an emergency back-up in case the other camera goes down?
I don’t think it is that much gear to carry.
It sure does easily fit into a backpack!
Avery October 01, 2009
From a purely consumer level, when I think about news papers and TV networks going out of business the question that always pops up for me is “Why?â€.
Why are they going out of business? What happened? Can anyone really point to an event or series of events an chronicle where things went awry?
I’ve heard the Pontificating Pundits Proffer their Postulations: (sorry… couldn’t resist)
“Craigslist killed the newspaper†just like “internet video†is going to kill CNN and MSNBC (and hopefully others.)
I suppose the case can be made that Craigslist did enable classified ad buyers to bypass the news papers and go directly to the consumer and you could say that with all the video being up loaded to YouTube and other internet sites consumers can get to what interests them right away and bypass the talking head at the networks.
Is it simply because of technology; is that why people are dropping their subscriptions and not watching the news?
In my mind the explanation of why consumers are turning their backs on the news industry is something else, something at the visceral level.
Based on my admittedly none “inside the biz†and purely going from my gut, I’ll tell you why, or at least offer my opinion…
The news industry in general, has lost touch with the people they are supposed to serve.
Over the years a virus has taken hold. Slowly but ever so surely the news industry has allowed a bias to creep in and take control. Decision makers with agendas use cunning and careful strategy to taint almost every news item the way that will aid their particular beliefs, however misguided.
I remember about 15 years ago we had the Arizona Republic delivered to the house every day. Yes, I noticed a bias but held my nose and overlooked it. But this bias I speak of grew and became so overt, so obvious that I cut back my subscription to 3 times a week. Perhaps a couple years after that the situation reach a point where I couldn’t tolerate it any more and simply cancelled it all together.
This may not be the only reason the industry is swirling around and around in the giant toilet bowl waiting to go down the pipe but I believe its a big part of the reason and thank goodness this correction is taking place.