The San Diego fires took their toll on microwave receive and relay sites, limiting local TV stations’ ability to send back live shots while covering the story. KGTV recently switched to a one-man-band newsgathering approach with 27 “digital correspondents” armed with Panasonic AG-HVX200 P2 camcorders, Apple MacBook Pro laptop computers, Apple Final Cut Pro and Verizon broadband wireless Internet cards. When they were able, the digital correspodents met up with either one of three microwave trucks or three temporary microwave relay stations. When those weren’t available or out of range, some were able to file reports on the laptop’s webcam (using iChat) via the Verizon wireless broadband cards. KGTV tells Broadcast Engineering that the quality was not nearly as solid as a microwave shot, but it gave the station more reach on the ground. (Thanks, Greg!)
Barry Diller said today’s major media companies still don’t get the internet — with the possible exception of News Corp. Diller said media execs should invest heavily in R&D in technology even if Wall Street might punish them for overspending in the short run. And he said companies should build new products online from scratch, and praised Time Warner’s TMZ.com as an example. Sounds like good advice to me.
Well, at least serious enough to have the lawyers look into it. Meanwhile today, Colbert has surpassed the 1 million friends mark on his “1,000,000 Strong For Stephen T. Colbert” Facebook group. So who’s behind this strategic effort to engage potential voters? A 16-year-old high school student named Raj. Now there’s even a poll suggesting that Colbert could be a presidential frontrunner in a month. What is this, Man of the Year?
You’ll remember Cory’s post from last month in which he asked if it’s time to rethink the AP model. Well today the board changed the pricing structure to reduce the fees for print customers, and in some instances sell stories individually. According to an AP article (go figure), Tom Brettingen, the AP’s senior vice president for global newspaper markets, said the plan will offer U.S. newspapers more flexibility in accessing and using news of local interest that may originate in other regions. The AP said that broadcast and online customers should also benefit from the changes, although programs for those customers have not yet been completed.
In a move that could complicate News Corp’s purchase of the Wall Street Journal, Democratic FCC commissioner Michael Copps wrote a letter to FCC chairman Kevin Martin asking him to investigate the deal. According to Broadcasting & Cable, Copps said he is concerned that the $5.6 billion combination would result in control of a network and two of the nation’s five largest newspapers by a single company and would result in the ownership of two newspapers and two TV stations in New York, the nation’s top market. Technically, the FCC isn’t reviewing the deal, so we’ll see if this letter does anything besides make news.
Microsoft beat out Google to buy a small stake ($240 million, which works out to 1.6 percent) in Facebook. Note that this is a much smaller stake than the previously rumored conversations which put the number in the 5-10 percent range. Microsoft’s ad deal with Facebook will expand to an exclusive arrangement for third-party ads, which will also be served to international visitors. It also puts Microsoft in the driver’s seat for any subsequent talks and investments that may take place down the road.
As I’ve said in the past, I think Facebook is one of the most promising new internet companies of our time.
Broadcasters covering the fires in Southern California can connect up on a new RTNDA message board dedicated to the story. “If you are a news manager or reporter who needs something … or a freelancer who has services to offer … or a news manager with advice to share … or you need to reach out to other newsrooms for any reason whatsoever, let us help you,” explains RTNDA.
This Google map is incredible, and even Google is highlighting it on their blogs. Radio station KPBS built this map using Google as part of their tools for telling the story. There are other maps out there, but this is the most complete map I’ve seen. Nice work.
It’s simple enough to put together a channel on YouTube of user-generated videos. We did it in about five minutes.
You’ll need a YouTube account. Go to Youtube.com/my_account and you’ll see a section on the lower right for custom players. Put together a playlist first, and then you will be able to skin your playlist with a custom player. It’s even easier than it sounds, and it sounds easy.
Local media sites in Southern California would be doing a tremendous service if they went one step further with their RSS feeds and created a few custom feeds just for stories about the wildfires in their areas. I know there are feeds for different county news stories, but a fire-specific feed would be an invaluable “wire service” for people trying to keep tabs just on this story as it changes constantly. Let us know if you see anyone doing this.
It goes without saying that a massive story like the California fires generates plenty of user content. CNN I-Report and MSNBC First Person are seeing the most submissions (at least with my unofficial count), and ABCNews.com’s i-Caught and FoxNews.com uReport are asking for user photos and video, too. And not just TV — NYTimes.com is asking for user video, powered by Brightcove. Of course, local media sites in LA are taking in a ton of photos (mostly) from the public. Check out LATimes.com’s user photos here. Maybe it’s just me, but watching a raw video clip of approaching flames shot by a homeowner from the perspective of their own balcony is even more compelling than an edited TV news report, especially online.
Many user photos are just as amazing as the professional shots.
Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson, Katie Couric, Matt Lauer, Anderson Cooper and Chris Cuomo are among the network news heavyweights in Southern California for the fire, reports Broadcasting & Cable. More details on the network news front on TVNewser here. And local TV stations are blowing out regular programming to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars in preempted revenue. “We’re burning through money here,” said KNBC News Director Bob Long. During Sunday Night Football, KNBC used its “News Raw” online video channel to stay on the story. KABC moved its soaps to a secondary digital channel, reports Variety. “Everybody that is on our list — staff, freelance, anybody who has ever worked for us — is getting a phone call, ‘Hey, can you come in?’ ” said Paul Button, KCBS’ assistant news director. “We’ve got all our live trucks, both choppers out there. Everything feels very, very taxed.”
On the entertainment front, shoots for CSI and 24 were canceled due to the fires.
I’ve been watching how the newspaper and TV sites cover the fires in Southern California, and it’s become very clear that some TV sites are having difficulty showcasing their content. For example, look at 10News.com and KNBC.com, to name a couple. Their standard templates, in my humble opinion, are restricting their coverage on the home page and don’t do much to distinguish this massive story from any other breaking news story. Everything feels like it’s jammed into small, inflexible boxes. In the 10News.com example, a big ad animated across the top of the page, pushing content down and back up again. Story angles get lost in the rotating tabs. Then look at LATimes.com. Clean, straighforward with an expanded coverage area that pops. Yes, I’m comparing apples to oranges in some respects because the LATimes is able to produce much more online content with a much larger staff — but critical information is easier to locate and it feels like a major story:
In another example, MSNBC.com has just switched to its breaking news layout, allowing more content to surface:
If you build a breaking news layout ahead of time, it’s not that much work to execute it when the story breaks. Just flick the switch. TV sites should own breaking news, and a flexible, content-driven design plays a big part.
San Diego Union-Tribune’s site is down right now, although it’s fire blog (hosted elsewhere) is working just fine for the time being (it crashed yesterday.)
We mentioned yesterday that LAFD was Twittering the fires, and now there’s the LATimes, San Diego’s PBS station KPBS and a blogger named Nate Ritter, among others. Since many of these are tagged, Twitter users can enter “track sandiegofire” in SMS or IM and receive notifications whenever a tweet goes out with that tag in it.
I’m not sure I’ve seen a more heart-wrenching video as this reporter from KFMB CBS 8 in San Diego reported as his house was burning down in front of him.
Count me among those probably responsible for bringing the sale of World Series tickets for the games at Colorado to a crashing halt. The club put the seats on sale at 10 am MT Monday, and under the weight of 8.5 million requests, the system stopped faster than a Yankees rally. According to a statement issued by the Rockies, “Paciolan, Major League Baseball’s ticket vendor, experienced a system wide outage that impacted all of its North American customers.” As a result, the team managed to sell just 500 of its seats, leaving most of the rest unsold. They’re working the problem and will have an announcement about how they intend to sell the rest of the tickets. How do you not prepare for a crush of traffic when you sell World Series tickets? Error. (I’d also like to take this moment to announce the “Take an LR Staffer Red Sox Fan to the World Series” program we have going…) UPDATE: They’re gonna try again today at 2 pm ET.
Updating: With over a quarter-million people asked to evacuate as flames approach, San Diego’s CBS8.com has blown out its home page with critical resources and a blog. 10News.com and NBCSanDiego are streaming live coverage. SignonSanDiego.com, powered by the Union-Tribune, is webcasting wall-to-wall on its new online radio station (although it’s a little light on information and too cheery given the size of this story.) LATimes.com is updating a cool Google map with information on the location and size of the many fires. Most of the LA stations are also streaming live coverage: KNBC.com, CBS2.com, ABC7.com, MyFoxLA.com and KTLA.com. Adam Housley is blogging behind the scenes photos and video on FoxNews.com.
The LAFD is sending out real-time alerts via Twitter. SignOnSanDiego has a fire blog, but it keeps crashing (lesson learned here: make sure your host can handle a real breaking news blog). Your best audio coverage will come from KNX, live stream here. The San Diego blog Cat Dirt Sez is doing a great job blogging the fire.
Any other standouts worth mentioning? Please leave in comments and we’ll add…
You’ll remember Cory’s post from last month in which he asked if it’s 
Count me among those probably responsible for bringing the sale of World Series tickets for the games at Colorado to a crashing halt. The club put the seats on sale at 10 am MT Monday, and under the weight of 8.5 million requests, the system stopped faster than a Yankees rally. According to a 
