TV News Sucks – Part 2
In 1979 the Iranians seized the American Embassy in Teheran. In response, ABC News created a nightly news program called “America Held Hostage”. It was hosted by the then little-known Ted Koppel.
Read moreBreaking News
About 10 years ago, when The New York Times was first starting NYTimes.com, most of the newspaper’s senior staff were nervous about the web. They did not feel anything should appear on the website until it had already been...
Read moreWhy TV News Sucks
For the past twenty years, I have spent the majority of my time on an airplane. London, Hong Kong, Taipei, Tel Aviv. Its all in the course of a day’s work. I live in hotels. And the first thing...
Read moreSpeak of the Devil
This, from the excellent lostremote.com For those who think that newspapers are not going to compete with television news in the realm of video. A Washington Post with 50 cameras in DC also makes it potentially the biggest local...
Read moreHow To Make A Living Online – Lessons From a Swedish Billionaire
In 1990, I was introduced to Jan Stenbeck, the third wealthiest man in Scandinavia. He was a self-made media billionaire, a Swedish Ted Turner – brilliant, mercurial, iconoclastic. I had spent two years travelling around the world with my...
Read moreA Tale of One City
In 1942, the economist Joseph Schumpeter coined the terms creative destruction. He was describing what happens when inovation radically changes the groundrules of how an industry works. Those who thought they had a monopoly, or a lock on an...
Read moreNew York Times Television
This morning I am listening to NPR’s Weekend Edition. It’s a good way to spend a Sunday morning. In 1990, I was doing the same thing, when it occured to me that NPR could make some pretty good television,...
Read moreThe Ice Story
There is an old expression that says, “necessity is the mother of invention”. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Necessity does not drive invention. Rather, new inventions come along and mess up everyone’s life. They would,...
Read moreElectronic Colonialism
OK. Let’s say for a minute you’re Bangladesh. Like anyone else, you’ve got your good points, but you’ve also got your problems. (Look, who doesn’t?). Your biggest problem, however, is that the only time you get on TV is...
Read morePublic Broadcasting in Boston
This morning, I gave the keynote speech to 800 or so broadcasters from both PBS and NPR stations across the country as they kicked off their Media 2007 Conference in Boston. It might seem odd to have both PBS...
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