57 Comments Add your own

• 1. Rob  |  July 25th, 2008 at 3:20 pm

  Why do newspapers continue to look down their noses at television for their shocking headlines and lack of depth / lack of quality and then try to save themselves from finanicial ruin by doing television?

  On a bright note … glad to see Woody Harrelson back in front of the camera at the Star-Ledger. Good for him.

• 2. Michael Gay  |  July 25th, 2008 at 4:19 pm

  I have a funny feeling that first comment isn’t from Michael Rosenblum. He’s a smart guy and wouldn’t call this webcast good.

  I will say that I’m happy they made it embeddable, although I can’t imagine anyone would want to.

  My favorite paper webcast is still Studio 55 from the Naples Daily News. It’s far better than most TV webcasts too. naplesnews.com/studio55

• 3. peter  |  July 25th, 2008 at 4:44 pm

  Mike Rosenblum does the Limbaugh limbo (How low can you go)?
  I don’t think so!

  MG is undoubtedly correct - that comment is not from MR - he would never stoop to gratuitous insults.

• 4. Cory Bergman  |  July 25th, 2008 at 5:56 pm

  Just deleted the first comment which was under Rosenblum’s name. Checked the IP logs and as you suspect, it doesn’t appear to be him. Also, he’s on record questioning newspaper webcasts that try to mimic TV.

  I like to see newspapers getting out there and trying new things, so I wouldn’t be as harsh as Don. But in my experience, people don’t watch news webcasts, even when they’re produced by TV stations. It has to be a strong personality in a unique, underserved niche to even have a chance.

  I did notice, however, that the anchor held up the newspaper only 17 seconds into the webcast.

• 5. tdc  |  July 25th, 2008 at 7:02 pm

  dang, i missed that comment before it was trashed. it’s not often a comment gets deleted here… it must have been a doozie.

  actually, i tipped m.r. off to don’s post soon after it went up here and i suspect the comment was from
  one of the neaderthals that frequent his blog. i am surprised they know a foreign language.

  impressive.

• 6. Angela Connor  |  July 25th, 2008 at 8:51 pm

  A producer on my staff at my last job produced a webcast. We tried to spruce it up and it still didn’t work. The page views were not there, and the time spent…horrific! I all but begged my GM to let us cancel it. Finally we did, and her time was ultimately spent producing much more interesting content for the newspaper’s website that seemed to click with our visitors. It’s the old model and it doesn’t work. So sad to see that someone thinks it’s new, fresh..and most terrifying of of all…that it might work.

• 7. TR @ WSB  |  July 25th, 2008 at 10:35 pm

  Standard tv-style packages are often ineffectively old-school even for tv newscasts where you expect them - so it really is a headscratcher to see newspaper sites waste time on them, especially with newspaper-style writing, stilted voice tracking (or awkward “anchoring”), and the same deficiency as many tv packages … you don’t get to see enough of the best video or hear enough of the best interviews. I prefer to post “raw video” - trimmed to the best part, of course, not just the entire 10 minutes unless incredibly warranted - the beauty of the web is the accessibility of unprocessed content (from comments to video to documents) enabling you to make up your own mind. Cuts right to the heart of that quote we stole from various luminaries and posted on our “about” page: News is a process, not a product.

• 8. news-junkie  |  July 25th, 2008 at 10:41 pm

  why is that webcast so long? They shouldn’t exceed three minutes. I hope they take note. There’s just too many other videos and websites to get distracted by to sit through seven minutes.

• 9. Spike  |  July 25th, 2008 at 11:41 pm

  “I have a funny feeling that first comment isn’t from Michael Rosenblum. He’s a smart guy and wouldn’t call this webcast good.”

  Actually, he would. Rosenblum claims to have been training these people for four months and is already hyping the webcast as his latest triumph over on Medialine.

  Rosie’s a clever salesman, but that’s all. He knows nothing about producing good television, for any medium.

• 10. Amanda E.  |  July 26th, 2008 at 12:43 am

  Dear New Jersey Star-Ledger, a short critique from someone who spent time in Avid edit bays and making comments to editors working on their projects.

  1. Don’t read your script directly off your laptop word-for-word. You sound like a high schooler doing a “what I did on my summer vacation” speech and its annoying.

  2. Did you know a lot of males on TV wear makeup for a very good reason? Your shiny forehead is distracting - at the very least go get some shine blotting paper from Wal-Mart. Its in the same location as the acne medication so it won’t be a horrifying experience to walk into the cosmetics department as a member of the male gender.

  3. Whoa, those lower thirds are huge!

  4. Why was time wasted on slates giving credit to the reporter, photog and editor at the end of each package? It unnecessarily adds time to the webcast

  5. If you (newspapers in general) are going to rip on TV for doing “shallow stories”, why was one of the packages of a lady buying a palm tree to put by her pool?

• 11. papergirl  |  July 26th, 2008 at 6:57 am

  Too long, too boring. But still better than what’s being put out by local papers in my neck of the woods. It’s usually several minutes of, well, shots of people standing around. You want to know what’s going on? You have to READ the fuzzy title frames. It’s like watching a silent movie.

• 12. tdc  |  July 26th, 2008 at 8:08 am

  if they are doing this sort of quality a year from now, then dump on them.

  otherwise, let ‘em take a few swings… maybe both sides will learn that it’s not us v. them, but now the USER is the boss. WE will vote with our ‘clickah’.

  did you see where nbc and the nfl plan to live stream the entire sunday schedule?

  who needs affiliates?

• 13. news2alum  |  July 26th, 2008 at 8:39 am

  Might not be the best webcast around but you need to remember that there are no commercail TV stations in New Jersey (save for one small one in Atlantic City), so this webcast does serve an audience. The NY and Philly stations have never put much effort into covering the state.

• 14. John Proffitt  |  July 26th, 2008 at 5:01 pm

  Wow folks, ease up. Give it time. Go back and watch anything from the first 20 years of TV and you’ll be bored, too.

  Maybe this will work, maybe it won’t. Maybe some tweaks or a wholesale recreation will be needed. At least they’re trying.

  It doesn’t change the fact that TV news (local, cable, national) sucks pretty much across the board.

  The real test will be whether they continue to do what Amanda E. (above) referred to — the kitschy “palm tree by the pool” bullshit. If that’s part of their plan, then they’re no better than TV news.

  Hopefully they — and others — will find a way to use this new medium much more effectively for real news distribution.

• 15. jim wilson  |  July 26th, 2008 at 10:21 pm

  How sad….

  Newspapers just WON’T learn from mistakes — even OTHER newspaper’s mistakes.

  The Roanoke Times tried this and it failed. Miserably.

  WRAL.com tried this with GOOD VIDEO and an incredible amount of BUILT IN traffice (1 million pvs per day to the site overall) and it didn’t fly. Cancelled.

  So, what makes the Star Ledger thinks they can pull this off?

  Man… newspapers are more doomed than I thought if they keep trying these bad ideas over and over….

  Oh, I keep a deathwatch going on the Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer’s webcast. It’s your typical, boring, preproduced talking head, boring (did I say that already) webcast.

  Good luck Star Ledger. Maybe you will prove everyone wrong, but I seriously doubt it.

• 16. John Hassell  |  July 27th, 2008 at 5:44 pm

  Thanks for the feedback, everyone. We’re new to this and will undoubtedly screw up a bit along the way.

  A few quick things:

  1. Michael Rosenblum has worked closely with us on our video efforts, and we’ve greatly appreciated his advice. He’s a smart guy and a lot of fun to work with.

  2. A big part of our plan for this is working with Jersey bloggers. You can’t see that in the pre-launch samples.

  3. news-junkie — You’re right, we need to keep it short, and it will usually run no longer than 5 minutes. But on the show blog, we also break it into its component parts. No one has to watch the whole thing. (We agree with TR @ WSB that people should have access to the process and not just the product, and we’re opening up the process on the blog, on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere.)

  4. We think you’re right, news2alum, that New Jersey has traditionally been underserved by TV news. Local news and feature video feels like a good niche for us, and a logical extension of The Star-Ledger’s newsgathering.

  5. Amanda E. — Good advice and much appreciated. The lower thirds are as big as they are on the theory that most people will be watching this in a small embedded player. We agree on the video intros and credits, and will be changing that.

  We launch tomorrow. I hope you’ll check in from time to time and let us know how we’re doing. We’ll listen and improve.

  Thanks,
  John Hassell, The Star-Ledger

• 17. Jay Rosen  |  July 27th, 2008 at 7:30 pm

  “AP has a glowing write-up…”

  What was glowing about the write-up? The AP doesn’t glow, usually, and it didn’t here. Maybe what Don meant is that this didn’t deserve any write-up at all.

• 18. jim wilson  |  July 27th, 2008 at 7:39 pm

  Good luck John.

  I don’t want to rain on your parade, but no one on the web watches video if the video is not compelling. TV web sites are lucky to get 3-8 percent of their overall traffic to video clips — and they would have the “best” video of anyone.

  So… please make sure to have compelling video.

  Obviously, you just talking into the camera reading news or whatever isn’t going to cut it.

• 19. John Hassell  |  July 27th, 2008 at 7:43 pm

  Jim,

  Couldn’t agree more.

  Though we do think Woody Harrelson has his charms.

  Cheers.
  John

• 20. jim wilson  |  July 27th, 2008 at 7:44 pm

  Oh, and the most annoying thing newspapers do for “video” is show STILL PHOTOS and move them around or zoom in and out on them….

  So, as a user you start watching the “video” and then you never actually see video of the subject you thought you’d see. It’s just still photos “moving” around. It’s a trick and users feel ripped off.

  Please don’t do that.

  And, especially don’t do it with FILE photos — or AP images of Lindsay Lohan (or Tony Soprano or whatever celebrity of the day) from 2 years ago…

  It’s NOT video.

• 21. jim wilson  |  July 27th, 2008 at 7:56 pm

  One more thing.. you’re taking all this with a heck of a lot of grace.

  We’re somewhat cruel at times, but you’re showing some real class by taking it well.

  Good luck, really!

• 22. John Hassell  |  July 27th, 2008 at 8:11 pm

  Jim,

  Thanks for the good wishes. This will either work … or it won’t. But we’re throwing ourselves into it, and we welcome the criticism, constructive or otherwise. If we’re not prepared to listen, this is over before it even starts.

  John

• 23. Anonymous  |  July 28th, 2008 at 1:56 am

  Please fix the viewer pane in relaqtion to the svtion bar it want to run over underneath, thanks.

• 24. Brian Donohue (aka woody)  |  July 28th, 2008 at 7:33 am

  Me? I’d rather look at guy’s head shine than look at a guy wearing makeup. Lesser of two evils, I think. So I’ll stay out of the makeup aisle, but thanks for the suggestion - and all the others.

• 25. tdc  |  July 28th, 2008 at 10:53 am

  yeah all you newspapers out there-

  take it from these tv-types who don’t allow embeds, comments or even bother to link out and you’ll be fine.

  there’s plenty of room in the tar pits.

• 26. tdc  |  July 28th, 2008 at 12:36 pm

  some guy going by the name “buzz” has a few words on today’s launch.

• 27. Pete Liebengood  |  July 28th, 2008 at 2:03 pm

  Reporter didn’t think this piece through. What is missing…ground to baloon element. This is half of a visual story. The only way a VJ makes this shoot work is to do it twice ….once POV, 2nd time from several locations on ground.

• 28. Jeff Jarvis  |  July 28th, 2008 at 5:48 pm

  Well, witness the priesthood of local TV “news” trying to recreate itself.

  First, my disclosure: I introduced Rosenblum to the Ledger.

  Now let it be clear that Naples was the LAST — VERY LAST — model for what they should have created. Naples was exactly the model of what I told them they should NOT do: the cheesy copy of cheesy local TV news.

  Makeup on the skull? Oh, come on! Look at yourself in the mirror when you say that and try not to laugh (if you have any sense of irony) or gag (with any sense of humor).

  Not reading a Telepromter? Great. Just talk to me. Don’t fake talking.

  He dared unplug the phone in a dryrun and be human? You see, there he was actually being human instead of acting human as local TV news happytalkers do.

  Big lower thirds! OMG, what a sin!

  The pool story? I enjoyed it. I had no idea palms grew in Jersey.

  Too long? Maybe. But it’s a helluva lot shorter than 22 minutes of cheesy local TV news or 24 hours of local cable news repetition.

  And while we’re at it.. No B-roll! No noddies! No stand-ups! No establishing shots! No happy talk! How dare they?

  Testy? Yes, I am . Because local TV “news” sucks, people, it sucks. But by your comments you hold yourselves up as the priests of TV?

  The very best critique I can imagine for this is that you local V hacks don’t like it.

  You’ve inspired me to rip apart my local TV news shows. Coming soon. Film at 11.

• 29. Safran  |  July 28th, 2008 at 7:06 pm

  It’s a little disturbing how the LR commenters have taken a turn for the discouraging of late. This is a place of encouragement and constructive criticism. We love it when the unconventional happens. We offer suggestions on improvement, but not from a traditional TV POV. Remember Cory’s Axiom: The Web is Not TV.

  Being Video does not mean Being TV. It does mean being real. And this succeeds at that. I don’t know if this will succeed or fail, but neither do the folks at the Star Ledger, and that’s completely wonderful. The barrier to entry is so low that they’re willing to try. And the fact that they don’t have the artifice of TV makes this all the more watchable. This is a conversation, not a lecture.

  Oh - and pans across a still picture worked fine for Ken Burns.

  Congrats to John Hassell and the Star Ledger for this - and its entire video project. Whenever you start something new, it’s inevitable you’ll hear from those who say it can’t be done. Innovators take that as a good sign.

• 30. Jason DeRusha  |  July 28th, 2008 at 7:23 pm

  I do enjoy Jeff Jarvis, although making a blanket statement that local TV news sucks is absolutely moronic. Maybe local TV in his town sucks. Maybe 3 out of 4 stations he watches sucks. But some of us are doing cool things. Even stories that focus on information instead of fancy b-roll or cutaways or BS.

• 31. Rosenblum  |  July 28th, 2008 at 9:28 pm

  Personally, I like it a lot. And it is just the beginning. In time it will get even better, but I like the ‘real feel’ as opposed to the hair and teeth anchors and reporters of local tv news.

• 32. Mister Snitch  |  July 28th, 2008 at 10:30 pm

  “Testy? Yes, I am”

  The term you’re looking for, Jarvis, is ‘thin-skinned’.

  You ALWAYS are ,Jarvis, when you want to link yourself to something as ‘an accomplishment’ of yours. You want unadulterated praise, and when you don’t get it, you get nasty. It’s got nothing at all to do with the state of TV news, much as you want to claim that.

  It’s about YOU, Jarvis. It’s always about you, there’s always an angle. Someone so sadly transparent in his self-promotions yet so allergic to legitimate criticism should really take more care in his online claims.

• 33. Mister Snitch  |  July 28th, 2008 at 10:38 pm

  Re the Star Ledger effort per se (Jarvis aside): Don’s right. It’s no biggie. Certainly it’s not the breath of fresh air Jarvis wants to sell it as, for no other reason than because it lets him drop a connection or two.

  I’m rooting for the SL, as they are one of the few worthwhile papers in New Jersey, and the state definitely needs a better quality of news. But they’re just going to have to keep trying. They don’t have anything special going on here. Nothing riveting, nothing really innovative, and certainly they’re not breaking anything all that earthshaking.

  God, what a load of empty hype from Jarvis over this thing. What garbage.

• 34. Drew Geraets  |  July 28th, 2008 at 11:19 pm

  I gotta back up my old co-worker DeRusha. The NBC and CBS stations in the Twin Cities do a pretty good job with local news.

  I like LEDGER LIVE from what I see. Not perfect, but not cheesy. Here’s a question: Is anyone using Mogulus or UStream to do a live weekly sports show or daily news show that encourages audience participation? Or what about a constant live newsroom stream with ability for people to chat and for reporters to jump on, etc.?

• 35. Jeff Jarvis  |  July 29th, 2008 at 3:08 am

  Jason,

  I live in TV HQ, New York. That’s the local TV news I watch. I travel across the country and watch it everywhere it goes. So my conclusion is a considered analysis.

  Local TV news sucks.

  Do a real hard analysis of a show and see how much real reporting you come up with. And then see how much you get fake locationers (”I’m standing in front of a place where a story happened 12 hours ago but nothing is happening now except that this is TV so we think I should be standing here because it makes it look newsy even though all I did is report what yoiu read in the morning paper; I could be out getting a real story but this is what we all do so I’m doing this”); fires, fires, fires; crimes, crimes, crimes; fluff from PR; reips and reads. And the stories themselves, filled with the cliches of TV and not doing new things; gotta have that b-roll, that stand-up, those noddies. Does it all suck? Of course, not. But a hard analysis of the real journalistic value will yield too little. Moronic? I’m afraid it’s too much of local news that fits that description. And refusing to see that is, too.

• 36. Jason DeRusha  |  July 29th, 2008 at 5:53 am

  OK, then by that logic, blogs suck. Why not focus on the bad, or the good, and point that out.

  Your analysis doesn’t really hold for the newscasts in the Twin Cities. By and large, there are few of those stupid live shots, few fires, little crime, etc. Click on my name, and you’ll see a nightly report we do at WCCO that uses no b-roll, no stand-ups, no cutaways.

  Anyway, back to the real topic, I like newspapers experimenting with this kind of stuff, especially in areas that have no local news coverage. I’d like to see more cutting through the crap– giving us the straight deal– and the Ledger seems to be moving in that direction. (And I don’t think the host needs any makeup on that forehead. What self respecting Jersey guy would be wearing MAC foundation?)

• 37. tdc  |  July 29th, 2008 at 6:36 am

  someone above said in regards to tv news o-t-w: “some of us are doing cool things”…

  well, then by that logic, most are not.

  case closed.

• 38. used to be in journalism  |  July 29th, 2008 at 6:46 am

  It’s hard to consider how New Jersey managed without this. Yawn. Too long, too boring, the newsroom thing is stupid, it’s like watching an episode of Lou Grant or something. Why can’t I just read this stuff out loud to myself?

  John, you’re constant answer to everyone’s comment is weird. Jeff, why is that everything done by one of your newspaper buddies is the greatest ever?

• 39. used to be in journalism  |  July 29th, 2008 at 6:47 am

  whoops, shoulda been your

• 40. Rosenblum  |  July 29th, 2008 at 9:44 am

  I for one will take watching an episode of Lou Grant as a compliment. I would far perfer to watch that than Newscenter4 or whatever the local pap is called. Here’s a good experiment for local TV news guys. Burn one of your shows on a dvd and sell it at Blockbusters for $1. See how many you sell. 0?…1? (Please ma, ya gotta….) You are spending what, $40 million a year for something no one really even wants to see. Time for a different approach. Lose the makeup for starters.

• 41. LW  |  July 29th, 2008 at 10:29 am

  If this is not tv news, aspires to be something better, then why have an anchor? Why bother emphasizing that it’s live? At noon, when very few people can/want to/remember to watch it? Who is the audience?

  The anchor is a distraction. The innovation here is that talented reporters are telling stories in a new way. Foreground them, and emphasize the SL’s penetration into the state. Make video stories available a la carte, with brief text intros, so readers/viewers can be empowered to choose. Link from the videos to relevant print stories from the Ledger archives, and to other things written/produced by the reporters. The reporters are the talent; this format diminishes that key point.

  If, as Jarvis says, this is not tv news, then break the mold rather than trying to reshape it.

• 42. John Hassell  |  July 29th, 2008 at 11:12 am

  LW,

  We make the videos available as standalones with extended captions, and viewers don’t have to watch the show if they would rather watch just one of the component parts.

  On the show’s blog page, we offer the show, links to stories behind the day’s headlines and each of the video stories in separate embedded players. It’s like show notes — very much a la carte.

  Elsewhere on the site, all of our videos (many more than we could squeeze into the show) are displayed in a gallery - and there’s a separate gallery for user-submitted videos.

  You can also find all of this video content in a different format at tvjersey dot com. Finally, we offer all the videos through a Facebook app (just search for Ledger Live) and through iTunes.

  The purpose of the show is to serve as a showcase for some of this work and also to bring people into the newsroom for a quick take on the stories New Jerseyans are talking about. Starting tomorrow, we’ll also use it as a platform for bloggers across New Jersey to offer video commentary on some of the day’s stories.

  We do it at noon because that’s when viewership of online video spikes. We hope the audience will be anyone interested in a quick take on what’s going in New Jersey, a sampling of Jersey voices and some good video journalism. So far, so good.

  Thanks,
  John

• 43. LW  |  July 29th, 2008 at 12:01 pm

  Sorry, John; the blog page is as a la carte as a waitress pushing the meatloaf hard while not handing out a menu. I can order something else if I know to ask for it. The link to the archive is difficult to see, buried by loud auto-playing ads (I know you need em) and the Ledger Live links… and once you get to the the gallery, it is inelegant and not particularly easy to use… why usernames instead of bylines? “With the Star-Ledger” — I assume because user videos land in the archive too — rather than “By the Star-Ledger” undermines the authority of your brand.

  Tvjersey.com is a lot cleaner (you have some skewed aspect ratios on some of your thumbs, which draws away from the overall impact of the design)… why no link to there from the blog? And why no Star-Ledger graphic? The Ledger has meaning to anyone who’s been paying attention… why not play that up?

  As for bringing in the bloggers– that’s great, there’s a place for it. But I think the reporters and photographers you already have on staff should be featured, their work promoted.

  Anyway– thanks for listening the feedback, with especially good humor. I’m rooting for you guys.

• 44. mediawiseguy  |  July 29th, 2008 at 9:47 pm

  newspapers are foolish to attempt to do tv news on the web. As much as they hate to admit it, video requires performance, command , and story. Not just story.

  the answer is to marry strong newspaper journalism with the techniques of local news. A poor story teller kills the story.

  Mike R. is hardly an icon. He has failed at every shop he has tried to convert.

• 45. Rosenblum  |  July 30th, 2008 at 9:28 am

  Local TV news already steals most of their stories from the newspapers.
  The last thing I would want to adapt from local news is their storytelling techniques. Death. Do you really think that the average person, upon seeing someone hit by a car (for example) would come home to their spouse, sit ramrod straight at the table and intone “tragedy struck the streets last night as 22 year old Mary McGrath fought for her life”
  Please….
  The ‘techniques’ of local news were honed in the 1950s and have not changed one iota.

• 46. jim wilson  |  July 30th, 2008 at 11:55 am

  ok safran.. back to sell us something…

  The panning across still photos aspect DOES NOT work well.

  Sure, the content for a slim, very deep piece of content for a documentary *might* work for PBS.

  But, on a daily news cast? That is billed AS VIDEO?

  First, there is a reason PBS exists. It is not in the position to get ratings and make real money…

  So, if someone wants to copy that “video” style.. have fun… you won’t make dime one.

  Trying to compare a 9 part Ken Burns documentary on (government subsizied PBS) to a daily news VIDEO cast is ridiculous Safran.

  Plus, just look at the ratings of the recent Ken Burns attempts. Quite low…

  If newspapers want to listen to you and shoot video of still photos — great. That makes it even easier for TV stations to win the battle of local news.

  Go sell your stuff somewhere else… please

• 47. Safran  |  July 30th, 2008 at 12:17 pm

  That was for free.

• 48. tdc  |  July 30th, 2008 at 4:39 pm

  #46,

  did you recently leave wral and take a job at wdik?

• 49. jim wilson  |  July 30th, 2008 at 7:01 pm

  ha! no.. funny though!

  I just cant believe some as “smart” as Safran would really try to sit here and tell us that shooting still photos as video is OK…

  And compare a Ken Burns documentary to news video….

  Just amazing…

• 50. jim wilson  |  July 30th, 2008 at 7:02 pm

  and it was worth every penny…

• 51. Safran  |  July 30th, 2008 at 9:20 pm

  Jim/Jason:

  I always enjoy your ad hominem attacks and your postings that do little to advance to discourse. It’s been months since you tried to slap me down with an obvious “he’s just trying to sell something” crack, and I was beginning to think you’d forgotten.

  I like to think that, even as an evil consultant, I too have the right to publish my opinion on LR. The reason I left as a full-timer here was so that LR could maintain its neutrality. Although I knew I could post stories that wouldn’t conflict with my work, I also knew I would be faced with allegations of trying to fudge the news in my direction. I wouldn’t do that to LR. So I blog on my own, where it’s clear what I do for a living.

  I’d like to know - and I hope you’ll come clean: why the anger? What have I done to you? I have a feeling an evening in a bar would resolve the grudge. And I’d buy.

  I will continue to post my thoughts and opinions here. (Until Cory tells me otherwise.) Everyone knows what I do for a living. I have yet to post a sales pitch. I post, as I did for 7 years at LR, thoughts, ideas and opinions about our industry. Jim, I’ve earned a voice here and I’m willing to bet there are a few folks who will back that up.

  I extend my offer: let’s exchange a real discussion, via phone, email or in person, so I can find out what it is that I have done to deserve these snide, hateful attacks. If I have earned them, give me the chance to right them. If I haven’t, please allow me the honor of providing my own defense. In either case, beer will play a role.

  Do you accept? Email me at steviesaf@gmail.com.

• 52. jim wilson  |  July 31st, 2008 at 2:05 pm

  Of course I don’t accept…

  Look, your motive here is to sell something.

  Otherwise you would have never compared a Ken Burns documentary to daily NEWS VIDEO.

  It just smacks of a off-the-cuff remark that makes you look “smart” when in reality — when you really analyze it — makes no sense.

  I know what you are up to. It’s to provide “feel good” comments that seem to support just about everything… and what does a GM want to see? Just that.

  They don’t want reality from people who have actually done this — and seen it fail spectatularly.

  I really just can’t believe that you are such a salesman that you would try to “smooth things over” by — again — using Ken Burns as an example of “what works”.

  According to your logic I could find any snippit of video anywhere and say “well, it works” — not matter what it is.

  Just keep posting and I’ll keep calling you out.

  It’s nothing personal — I just HATE bad ideas and smarmy people who never seem to find anything wrong — because it helps their business.

  When HAVE you EVER said “Gosh, this just is not a good idea — don’t do it”?

  Never.

  That is because your MO is just as I said above — all smiles and “go get ‘em” when in reality the ideas are actually bad.

  Keep it up. Some GM somewhere who doesn’t know any better will buy…. you cast a thousand nets and eventually you will haul in some fool.

  Good luck

• 53. Safran  |  July 31st, 2008 at 5:12 pm

  That’s what I thought.

• 54. jim wilson  |  August 1st, 2008 at 11:25 am

  when is the LAST time you ever said something someone was trying was a bad idea?

  I rest my case…

  rah, rah, rah!!!!

  sales, sales, sales!!!!

  if you’re the person on the other end having to deal with your inane ideas (and then implement them) you come to resent bad ideas — and those who constantly cheer them on (so as to look good)

  when has your company ever done ANYthing that has worked? please.. tell me…

• 55. Safran  |  August 1st, 2008 at 3:31 pm

  I’m not going to rise to the flamebait anymore, Jim. I’ve supported and panned all sorts of ideas over the years. I offered to have an intelligent, one-on-one discussion on this with you. You refused. Done.

• 56. jim wilson  |  August 2nd, 2008 at 12:42 pm

  I’ll rest my case, too.

  You can’t point to a single time on the Lost Remote blog where you EVER said something was not a good idea.

  You also can’t give an example of a success from AR&D.

  And dont go try selling us that WKRN stuff — that failed long before the San Francisco debacle.

  Oh, wait, KTBS? Yeah, not a success story either. And how is that local ad network going? By the way, that is NOT a scalable idea… Google does it because of its reach and audience…. Are you telling me market 100+ is going to monitize something like this?

  TV station websites can barely schedule their OWN ads correctly on their OWN sites… now you think they can run and manage an entire local network.

  As they said in the wonderful last episode of Generation Kill (I’m paraphrasing): “The business end of Gumbert’s crack pipe must be hot to the f-ing touch.”

  Oh, and that was a video presentation with no panning over still photos. I wonder how I managed to still watch it? Golly gee…

  – 30 –

• 57. Eric Williams  |  August 12th, 2008 at 9:29 am

  CapeCast, the official webcast of the Cape Cod Times, rules the webcast universe. Many thanks, Eric Williams.

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