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,...

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,...

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...

Yesterday we spent the day with one of our corporate clients. I don’t want to get into any names here, but suffice it to say they are a major publisher and you would recognize their magazine titles anywhere. It’s ...

I found out the other day that we are finalists for a Knight Foundation Grant for a Citizen Journalism project we have proposed.  We’re keeping our fingers crossed. The notion of ‘Citizen Journalism’ sends conventional television news people into...

We spent most of yesterday screening submissions to a new television series we are producing for Discovery called ‘Show Us Your World’. The concept is derivative of Current.tv, which I did with Al Gore a few years ago. But...

Technology dictates architecture. That is, a specific technology demands a specific architecture. Not the architecture of a building, but rather the architecture for the implementation of that technology.  As lazy humans, however, we get the technology first; the architecture...

In the late 90’s, I became the President of New York Times Television. It was a new company, one that was founded when Punch Sulzberger bought my company, Video News International. I had told Mr. Sulzberger that I would...

There is an old expression that says ‘necessity is the mother of invention’. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is not necessities that precipitate invention; rather inventions come along unbidden and most people run away from them...