Comments on: Call me a snob but I hate web video

By: Tom Abate

Tom Abate — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 14:15:29 +0000

Well, Howard wisely declined the offer to participate in yet another debate about whether Mac is better than Windows . . . wait, wrong snobbery. Anyway, you get the point.

And Doug, I’m glad you’re with me on this but the situation is even tougher than your outline. As newspapers cut into their newsgathering muscle they must ALSO learn video because Howard is right in that much of the audience wants its news with talking pictures. Ah well, me and the other print snobs had better get over our bad selves and learn something about telling meaningful stories in video because the audience has voted with its eyeballs.

By: Doug Milison

Doug Milison — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 19:03:38 +0000

Here’s another old fogey convinced that we won’t see the day in my lifetime (still several decades to expect, conservatively) when people abandon reading news journalism on paper in favor of viewing it all digital video. We may continue to see video news, on TV, and on the Web, and on our Dick Tracy wristwatch communicators or iPhone (whichever I can afford sooner) but it’s not going to replace a newspaper. And, yes, I do believe that publishers will find a way to make a profit on the hardcopy paper part of the delivery network. If they want to do it, if they invest in figuring out how to integrate the hardcopy part with the rest of the online and other digital elements.

Unfortunately, none of this means that newspaper publishers will any time soon stop dismantling the news reporting and publishing infrastructure they’ve invested in for so long. So, thousands of experienced journalists - if they can make it through the “adjustment period” - will be available to make the next generation of publishers figure out how to do this: how to use the Web and other online and digital media in ways for which they are best suited, while using the hardcopy version in a way that maximize bang for buck.

By: Howard Owens

Howard Owens — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 16:56:55 +0000

Could I have the OK Go treadmill video and a month’s worth of GeekBrief.tv on my desert island? (that might be a bit more than 15 minutes, but as long as we’re talking hypothetical).

I’ve been through a lot of debates about online video (many posts on my blog), so I’m not entirely up for a rabid squabble.

Let me just say, for newspaper journalism: video is the future.

That may not suit your discriminating tastes, but discriminating tastes, so to speak, are what are destroying the newspaper game.

Thankfully, it sounds like that’s all changing for the SF Chron.