Videographer, CBN

Virginia Beach, VA

Read the full post March 23rd, 2007

‘The Daily Show’ explains the Viacom-YouTube fight

On Thursday night’s episode of The Daily Show, Demetri Martin explained the battle between Viacom and YouTube. At one point, he stops and wonders if you are watching him - right now - on YouTube. (Comedy Central is owned by Viacom.) As Comedy Central is kind enough to provide this embedded player, the answer at LR is no, although you can find this clip on YouTube. For now. The segment has the potential to be a recurring gig for Demetri, who sends up news cliches in a bit called “Professional Important News.”

2 comments March 23rd, 2007

CBS puts content from today and yesteryear on Sprint TV

If you have the Sprint TV offering on your Sprint Nextel mobile phone, you now have access to CBS content. Some interesting parts of the deal, according to B&C: in addition to the usual “clip length” offerings, this includes live “mobilecasts” of the CBS Evening News, full-length episodes of Jericho and stuff from shows of yesteryear - The Brady Bunch (which, as LR reader Barney notes in our comments, originally aired on ABC) and I Love Lucy. CBS will sell advertising in the form of pre-roll ads for the clips and longer spots for the full-length shows.

3 comments March 23rd, 2007

Tour WSJ.com’s video facilities

Beet.TV got an inside look at Dow Jones Online’s video facilities, which include Avid and Final Cut Pro editing and a studio with a remote-controlled camera. Wall Street Journal reporters are “gradually” getting their own video cameras, and Walt Mossberg records clips of himself off his webcam and FTPs them in. As we’ve mentioned before, WSJ.com’s videos are fully sharable and embeddable through a partnership with Brightcove.

3 comments March 23rd, 2007

Politico’s inaccurate blog post spreads fast

Yesterday at 11:06 am ET, just 54 minutes before John Edwards’ scheduled announcement, The Politico’s Ben Smith posted an item on a blog on the site that a source had told him that Edwards would be pulling out of the campaign. Within minutes, CNN, NBC News, MSNBC.com and CBSNews.com cited the report, according to the AP. Of course, at noon John Edwards said he was staying in the campaign despite the resurgence of his wife’s cancer. Smith later retracted the report and apologized, but I imagine the media won’t be quoting The Politico on any major stories without independent confirmation anytime soon. It’s also a little frightening that a simple, single-sourced blog post can spread to millions of people via credible news sources within minutes.

Adds anonymous in comments: “Reporters (at least used to) trust the Politico more than your average blog because it’s run by former newspaper reporters. Smith used to work at the Observer and Daily News in NY. I’m not convinced he wouldn’t have posted the same thing at those papers’ sites had he still worked there. The issue isn’t “blog post” vs “credible news sources,” it’s the other part you mentioned — that one reporter used an anonymous single source and that a bunch of other reporters quoted it without independent verification. What the hell?”

Adds Cory: “Right, I’m not inferring that blogs aren’t credible, but a blog post on a brand new site is way down the credibility scale in the public’s eyes compared to NBC News and CNN. By citing the report, the media made the story much more credible.”

9 comments March 23rd, 2007

Wii is your grandparents’ console, LR comments rule

Quite a while back, LR commenter Patrick responded to a post on game console popularity, “My friends are telling me that even their grandmas are getting into the games, especially bowling.” Fast forward to today’s Reuters headline: Wii game console bowling over U.S. retirees. Right on, Patrick!

So let it be heard: comments rule. The LR community is living proof of the value of the “news conversation” and contributed content — comments to posts frequently develop into real commentary and virtual roundtables. Saf and Cory weigh in on threads with heavy value, and some days my posts consist only of long-winded opinions and observations in the comments. But dear LR readers, when you share your opinions, experiences and expertise, you are the ones who really make the site sing. I absolutely love it when we post a controversial article, and the subject of the article responds openly.

Thanks for reading, everyone, and thanks for playing along.

4 comments March 23rd, 2007

Reaction to the NBCU-News Corp online video deal

A sampling of some of today’s reports on the NBCU/News Corp deal to put thousands of hours of video onto a new site…

Hollywood Reporter: “…charter advertisers include Cadbury Schweppes, Cisco, E-surance, Intel Corp. and General Motors. Royal Caribbean signed on Thursday morning as did another advertiser who wished to remain nameless.”

NYT: “…the unnamed venture — which some working on the project referred to internally as “Caterpillar” — could represent one of the boldest efforts yet…”

Globe and Mail: “Broadband is officially the new cable,” said Kaan Yigit, a new-media analyst with Toronto-based Solutions Research Group, said yesterday. “Broadband has arrived today.”

USA Today: “NBC Universal and News Corp. … unveiled their splashiest effort yet to hang on to people who want to watch popular TV shows and movies on their computer screens.”

SF Chronicle: “James McQuivey, an analyst for Forrester Research (says)…’The YouTube of two or three years from now, if left unchecked, blooms like a big potential threat.’”

Bloomberg: “‘It really does seem like everyone is taking sides against Google and YouTube,’ said Greg Sterling, an analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence in Oakland, California.”

Add comment March 23rd, 2007

$13,500 prize offered for best news piece by a VJ

Michael Rosenblum points us to the announcement of the 2007 edition of the Concentra Award, a 10,000 Euro (About $13,500 at today’s exchange rate) prize for the best news piece by a videojournalist. Although based out of Belgium, the award is not limited to Europeans this year. It is also not for amateurs, but rather is for those who work at a broadcast station. (The entry has to show the anchor’s intro and outro.) From the rules:

Each entry has to be made by a video journalist that personally was responsible for the research of the item. He or she must have operated the camera and taken care of the editing personally. The voice over can be from someone else. Each news item has to be (made with) digital video and (preferably) be edited at a PC.

The Concentra Award is funded by a private company, Concentra Media, which owns Belgian newspapers and televison stations that fully operate with VJs. Rosenbloom and his team built four hyperlocal stations for Concentra around the VJ model, and he is the head of the USA jury.

Add comment March 23rd, 2007