Why I Don’t Contribute to PBS
Thirteen is still an unlucky number… Full disclosure: My very first job in TV was with PBS at Channel 13. That would be WNET/13, the PBS station in New York. I was a production assistant on a public affairs...
Read moreIs Video a Language?
Look around… Video is a language. Just like French or Arabic or Chinese. It is a way that we communicate ideas from one to another. You can pick up ‘street video’ (point the camera and push the button) just...
Read moreThe Case Against “Professional” Journalists
Amateurs! Let me be very clear from the start: I am a product of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University where we were taught to be professional journalists. Big mistake. Not the school – the entire concept....
Read moreIn Defense of Citizen Journalists
Wait…here’s what another blogger wrote… It was Christmas Eve of 1776. General George Washington’s troops had been badly beaten in New York and had been chased across New Jersey. Now they were in rags in the frozen fields of...
Read moreWhy Citizen Journalism Works
Sir Francis Galton Sir Francis Galton was a cousin of Charles Darwin. Born in 1822, he was an early proponent of eugenics. Well, we all make mistakes. But he was also a scientist who first applied mathematics to social...
Read moreThe Awful Power of Technology
Maybe you should think about computer programming… In 1911, Britainia ruled the waves and Winston Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty. It was the apex of the British Empire. The sun never set on the Empire and Britain’s...
Read moreThat’s Entertainment!
For my next trick, I will eat the trainer… I am down in Miami this week. For some strange reason, 6 birthdays in my family all all within the same four days in March: My wife, my mother, my...
Read moreMy Dinner With Bittman
The lobster course…. about half way through the meal… Last night we had dinner with our friend Mark Bittman and his wife Kelly. It’s always a pleasure to have dinner with Bittman. Besides being a world-class raconteur, he’s also...
Read moreThe BBC Begins to Embrace The Citizen Journalist
Still the best news organization in the world. My friend, Pat Younge, former President of The Travel Channel, now Chief Creative Officer at The BBC, sends me link this morning to an article in The Guardian, about The BBC’s...
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