An Evening Of Higher Education

After last night’s 6:00 o’clock news, I headed to Southern Connecticut State University. Jerry Dunklee, a journalism professor at Southern who I knew as a radio talk show host when I first came here, invited me to join a panel on blogging.

The class was already underway when I walked in the room. I was glad to see little has changed. The students avoided sitting close to the front.

Sitting behind a table, facing the group, were Denis Horgan and Andy Thibauld. These guys are much better examples of what bloggers are all about than the navel gazing I usually post.

Andy publishes “The Cool justice Report,” while Denis’ blog is self named.

Both these guys are capital “J” journalists with backgrounds at traditional media outlets. Denis went though a messy divorce at the Hartford Courant, after editor Brian Toolan told him to stop blogging. I’m not sure of all the steps, but the Courant no longer has Horgan… we do.

As with my blog, though in a much more beautiful, writerly way, Denis choronicles his own life and experiences. A really good writer can make the mundane meaningful.

If that came off as a left handed compliment, it wasn’t my intention.

Denis is also author of “Flotsam: A Life in Debris,” reviewed quite favorably in the… wait for it… Hartford Courant. You can’t make this stuff up!

Andy Thibauld is also a print journalist gone web. This description probably doesn’t do it justice, but his site is an outlet for Andy’s investigative reporting.

Staunchly liberal (as is Horgan), Andy is answering a calling, more than doing a job. The fact that he’s doing this kind of expository reporting in a medium where there’s little chance for financial payoff means it’s passion driven.

Stereotypically, both men seem directly out of central casting for who they are. That Denis is an Irishman from Boston is totally obvious before he even speaks! Andy wears the same rumpled trench coat nearly every other investigative reporter wears.

There’s got to be a warehouse where these are given out to people who whisper, “I know this pol on the take.”

Both these guys are passionate about what they do. Neither seems to have a free will choice to stop. It’s just too deeply ingrained in their DNA.

I’m not sure how either puts food on the table. There’s no money in blogging… certainly in this kind of blogging. People write for newspapers because they need to write and they need to eat. Blogging only fills half the equation.

I can’t be sure the students got what we were talking about. Can you understand what drives these two guys before being driven yourself? Don’t you first need to understand what it’s like pounding your head against the wall for a boss who judges your work by quantity alone?

The students seemed attentive and asked good questions. It’s just, I’ve come to the conclusion experience cannot be taught.

It’s a shame the traditional media (print and electronic) are under such brutal financial pressure. Guys like these, to whom principle is king, are amazing role models for college students. I’m not sure if I belonged on the same panel.

There are never enough bright people with principles.

The Modern Desktop Publisher Uses Video

About two years ago, a bunch of my friends got together to make a movie for an 8 hour film contest. One of the participants was Harvey. Harvey is a physician, heavy on the research, whose specialty is getting women pregnant.

He likes to say that. Me too.

One of the things Harvey has devised is a test used to better understand why some women don’t get pregnant… and how to change that. I’m oversimplifying, but you get the idea.

When we made the movie, Harvey knew nothing about video production. Because he had Final Cut Pro on his Mac laptop, and because he didn’t know how to use it, he asked if he could be our editor!

He wanted others, people who did know what they were doing, to teach him the software. That was a masterstroke.

That afternoon, Harvey began to edit. What he did was rudimentary, but before we began, Harvey didn’t know enough to know the extent of what he didn’t know!

I got an IM from Harvey yesterday. He was working on his own video project, explaining a medical test he’s devised for IVF candidates. Would I look at it?

What Harvey brought was a little rough. You could see it wasn’t done by someone who edited a lot. But, it was easy to see there was a really good and effective presentation hidden beneath the rough cuts.

First I, then my weather partner Gil Simmons, watched the video and took notes. Most of the problems were simple things – dissolves versus cuts and how to work around shaky shots. Harvey took it all in.

The really cool part was, Harvey had gotten so close by himself. He shot, wrote and edited the whole production&#185 with no outside help.

We had dinner and Harvey headed home, hoping to begin cleaning the production up. We spoke again at 11:30 PM.

By this time, I was as anxious to make the video a success as he was. I drove to his home and spent nearly three hours with him working on graphic elements.

Final Cut Pro is an amazing product. Just using the tools he had at home, Harvey was beginning to have a very slick looking production. It will end up being burned on DVDs and put on the web as Flash video.

There is a moral to this story. The kind of production Harvey assembled could have cost well into five figures – and it would have been worth it. Now, effective video production can be done by anyone, even a multiply doctored academician from Yale!

It’s true he needed some professional help to get him on track, but he was incredibly close to success all on his own. Non-linear editing tools allowed us to manipulate the project where it needed to be with little trouble.

Video production is the most powerful storytelling medium ever devised by man. It has been democratized.

&#185 – Writing is probably the most important part of video production. A well written story is the blueprint which guides how everything is assembled. Good writers are tough to come by.

Manipulating Mother Nature

I was just sent a tear sheet from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper. It’s a real letter to the editor from last week.

There’s not much I can say except, read it. You might need to read it again.

You may have noticed that March of this year was particularly hot. As a matter of fact, I understand that it was the hottest March since the beginning of the last century. All of the trees were fully leafed out and legions of bugs and snakes were crawling around during a time in Arkansas when, on a normal year, we might see a snowflake or two.

This should come as no surprise to any reasonable person. As you know, Daylight Saving Time started almost a month early this year. You would think that members of Congress would have considered the warming effect that an extra hour of daylight would have on our climate. Or did they?

Perhaps this is another plot by a liberal Congress to make us believe that global warming is a real threat. Perhaps next time there should be serious studies performed before Congress passes laws with such far-reaching effects.

Connie M. Meskimen

Hot Springs

Wow!

Blogger’s addendum: Jim, in Truckee, CA pointed out something I didn’t realize. The letter to the editor is probably heavily tongue in cheek by an attorney known for this sort of thing.

Since some of you don’t read the comments, and what Jim said is important to understanding (better than I obviously did) the story, I’ll include it here:

There’s even more to this ‘true’ story. Snopes.com (Urban Legends, etc.) says this guys is known for writing sarcastic and humorous letters to the editor.

See: Snopes.com

The Good Story From The Libby Trial

I want to make comment about the Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby trial. This will have nothing to do with the verdict.

I wasn’t there. I don’t have all the facts. The trial was incredibly politicized, These are all things I’ve worked to keep out of my blog.

There was, however, one part of the procedure which struck me when I read an article in Editor and Publisher.

(Juror Denis) Collins, a journalist who has written for The Washington Post and other newspapers — and is author of the 2004 book, “Spying: The Secret History of History”– described the jury’s painstaking deliberations. He said there were several “managerial types” on the jury and they spent many days just assembling post-it notes in some kind or “buildings blocks” fashion. They did not take an immediately straw vote.

If I ever go to court, that’s what I want to hear – the jury was involved and thorough. It’s something I think we often feel isn’t there.

A few years ago, while tuning past C-Span on a boring Sunday night I had audio tapes of Supreme Court proceedings. It was a similar feeling.

I had no idea what the particulars of the case were, but I heard intelligent men and women pondering the facts with well thought questions and comments.

Cousin Michael, who reads the blog and who clerked in the US Circuit Court might write otherwise, but these comments from the Libby trial and my ‘eavesdropping’ on the Supremes, gives me optimism our republic is built on a solid foundation.

Or maybe I’m just naive. I hope not.

One Man Band

When a news photographer is also the reporter, that person is referred to as a “one man band.” It is not usually offered up as a compliment.

How can you do both well, reporters and photographers ask? Historically, that was true. I’m not so sure it’s still true as cameras and editing gear become more sophisticated and lightweight.

My friend Mike‘s TV station has switched to this mode of news gathering. The jury is still out on whether it’s a success or not, though he says they cover a lot more stories.

The reason I’m writing about this now is because of a job listing from the New York Times.

Job Description

NYTimes.com, the #1 newspaper site on the Web (Nielsen/NetRatings) and winner of Best News Site awards in 2005, 2004, 2003 (Editor & Publisher) is seeking a Videojournalist to join our team.

The videojournalist will be responsible for producing video segments for NYTimes.com.

Responsibilities:

Less Of Katie On CBS

This is a news story that has to be ‘delicious’ to any editor or producer. Katie Couric’s photo has been published as part of the publicity campaign to launch her reign as anchor of the CBS Evening News. TVNewser&#185 discovered the photo had been doctored.

The photo on the right is a slimmer Katie!

Colors were adjusted too, but I see that as much less troublesome. Often photos need to be properly white balanced after the fact. I can’t tell you which, left or right, is closer to the ‘real’ color look. Does it matter?

On retouching in general – mea culpa. Helaine has complained when I’ve doctored vacation shots to remove power lines or other schmutz. The temptation to improve on reality is great, especially when it’s so easily done.

I’ve also removed dozens of pounds in photos of friends and relatives. Not one has ever seen the finished product, realized I’d slimmed them, and complained!

Professional photogs like Greg Apodaca do this all the time, and even brag about it by showing examples on their website.

I shouldn’t have any problem ‘glamming’ Katie in publicity shots. Can a guy who wears makeup every night really complain about the vanity of others?

However, since Katie represents the entire CBS news organization, maybe this would have been better left undone. This photo might be OK for publicity, but has to violate the news policies of CBS. That’s a standard even more important to keep after the revelation of doctored and staged photos from the Israeli/Lebanese conflict.

The need for a doctored photo implies our hearts may be in the wrong place, valuing physicality above content. That’s a message I don’t want to send.

&#185 – I am a daily reader of Brian Stelter’s blog, and once had a comment published. After watching Fox News follow a particularly heart pounding car chase for much of the afternoon, coverage stopped at 8:00 PM. That’s when O’Reilly (pre-taped, I believe) goes on. Here’s what I wrote at the time:

If they continued the chase, it would have been an acknowledgment it was news. By stopping at 8 p.m., they instead signaled it was news porn.

Unfortunately, news coverage based on the compelling nature of video, as opposed to the story’s impact or content, is a constant worry – and it’s certainly not limited to FNC, who happened to be the guilty party this particular time.

Hooked On Reality – Finally

I have missed the entire reality programming genre. None of it has interested me… and trust me, plenty of it has played on our TV, especially when Steffie’s been around. In fact, if you don’t watch VH-1, MTV and E!, you probably have no idea how much ‘reality’ is on every day.

While thumbing through the NY Times tonight&#185, I came across Alessandra Stanley’s review of Tabloid Wars. This reality show tracks what’s going on at the NY Daily News.

Digg – Move Over Slashdot

For years, I’ve been a huge Slashdot fan. Slashdot is techie news in a modified blog form.

Slashdot’s slogan says it all: “News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.”

Why Nerds is spelled with a capital “N” is beyond me. We’ll let it pass.

Over the past few months, my allegiance has shifted. Now my favorite techie site is Digg.

As far as I can see, Digg is sloganless.

Slashdot solicits stories from readers (basically references to things published elsewhere), which are perused by editors. So, what is posted is what strikes the editors as interesting.

Digg works differently. Readers still submit stories, but on Digg they’re juried by other readers. Are they good enough? Have they been “dugg?” If a story is approved by enough readers, it is promoted to the home page.

Digg is the product of Kevin Rose, who I remember from The Screen Savers on TechTV. Someone I know, who tried to solicit business from Kevin, described him as a genius. I have no doubt.

Someone must be making a fortune, because this site costs relatively little to mount and the Google ads displayed&#185 can be lucrative (I made $3.22 Sunday!).

I find Digg has more stories than Slashdot, and since every story submitted (good or bad) is available, I can always kill time looking at what others have found interesting. Slashdot only lets me see the editor’s choices.

I have become an online news junkie. I can’t get enough. It is an addiction. Digg does a better job feeding this addiction – it’s that simple.

Actually, my addiction goes beyond tech news. I have become a sponge for what’s going on whether it be politics, business, technology. I don’t care. I like a good story. I like to read.

Often, I am upset or disappointed that more isn’t going on… or that websites whose content I enjoy aren’t updated often enough (especially true on weekends).

I don’t know how many more Internet new junkies there are? I can’t be alone.

&#185 – In order to check out Google’s ads, I had to turn off Adblock, an amazing extension for my Firefox browser. I see hardly any ads on this PC and never see pop-ups or pop-unders. Never.

Getting Set For The Parade

I’ll be ABC NewsOne’s ‘liveshot boy’ at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York. My first hit is between 4:30 and 5:00 AM on World News Now. After that I’ll be doing a series of custom live shots for ABC affiliates across the country.

I’m really looking forward to it and anticipate a good, though cold, time.

Here’s how I had planned it. Eat dinner. Go home. Go to bed. Wake up at 12:30 AM for my 1:15 AM departure.

That plan failed!

It’s tough to hit the sack at 8:00 when you didn’t get out of bed until after 11:00 AM. I did ‘force myself’ to nap by 8:30 or so, but was up at 11:11.

Hey, a little sleep is better than none at all.

I’ve already been in touch with the ‘mothership&#185’ and read a ‘scratch’ track over the phone. This will allow the editor to put together a story which I will introduce in the morning.

Once I get to Manhattan, I’ll read the same words again, with better audio quality than you can get over my cellphone. That’s the audio that will go home.

ABC originally offered to put me up in a hotel. I thought it would be better if they sent a car… and they are sending one.

I could BS about how having a car pick me up isn’t a little decadent, but who would believe that? Truthfully, it will really come in handy on the way home when I will undoubtedly be bleary eyed.

Sometime later, I’ll write why driving your own car is almost always better than going by limo. Meanwhile, it’s off to the shower to get ready. By the time I’m ready to go, I’ll have more layers on than a wedding cake – it’s going to be cold and wet out there.

&#185 – That term for ABC’s headquarters came to me from Antonio Mora, who I worked with on GMA/Sunday and who is now anchoring in Chicago. One of the brightest, nicest people ever. I am so jealous.

Another Little Movie

Our loosely knit group is making another movie this Saturday. This is a little different structure than the last, and I’m hoping the reduced pressure means a better finished product… though who knows?

This time the whole thing is run by a company called Midnight Movie Making Madness LLC. I wonder why they need to limit their liability?

It’s a two week contest, though the first week is nearly over and hasn’t been used for any production.

In this competition, every team gets assigned a genre and subject. Instead of that being an impediment, this time it is helpful! We are making a SciFi movie that contains a card game.

Excellent! At least I have some props we’ll need.

We have a free mailing group through Google (is there anything Google doesn’t do?), so I threw out some ideas and a rough plot line. It didn’t take long for some suggestions to come back and the plot changed.

As much as I thought I had a good idea, the suggestions were better! I’m not going to reveal our plot here, but it’s pretty cool. There’s even a payoff!

Now the question is, can we carry it off? I’ve got an idea about a few simple special effects. Can our editor (his ‘real’ job is physician researcher) carry it off? He’s game, but not only will the techniques be new to him – so will the concept.

Meanwhile there’s a lot to think about and look forward to. Of course when we’re done, I’ll post the film online. You don’t do something like this without expecting it to be viewable.

Why I Went to Nashville – What I Found

I had a great time on my three day trip to Nashville. My hosts were nicer to me than I could ever expect.

There was a reason I went. It was my curiosity about what’s going on at WKRN. It is a Petri dish for a change in local TV news.

As I said before, the most obvious change has been to combine photographer and reporter into a video journalist or VJ. In and of itself, VJs or “one man bands” have been around for a while.

My own boss in Connecticut pointed out he had done this at NY1 sometime late in the last century. Small market stations do it all the time to save money.

Early in his career, one of our anchors in Connecticut was a ‘one man band’ in South Carolina. He didn’t relish doing both jobs because he felt he couldn’t concentrate on reporting if he also had to concentrate on shooting.

Having VJs can increase the body count of cameras on the street. Here’s what Michael Rosenblum, the guru of this technique said in an interview at LostRemote.com.

In a typical TV newsroom, there may be 70-100 employees while fielding 5-6 Betacams. This is as insane as having a newspaper with 70 reporters but only owning 5 pencils. The cameras are the pencils — they are the thing we make TV with. The thing that is actually on the air. When you only field 5 camera crews every day, every story must make air. It makes people very conservative. Very nervous. We can’t take risks. We can’t ever fail. Good journalism requires the ability to take a risk and fail from time to time. Creativity requires the ability to take a risk and fail.

I expected this increase in cameras to be what I noticed first. It wasn’t. The difference in what they’re doing in Nashville that hit me has more to do with reporting technique than anything else… and that was the nuance of this concept I missed from Connecticut. They go out to shoot stories differently and certainly go about the editing process differently.

Michael Rosenblum: In 1988, I was a producer with CBS News. But the more I produced TV news in the conventional way, the more I felt like I was involved in some kind of fraudulent activity. Producer, Reporter, Cameraman, Soundman, Editor. There was no way to get close to any character and no way to spend time on any story. So I quit. I bought a small video camera and went to live with a family in a Palestinian Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip. I stayed there for a month shooting every day. Even though I had been a TV producer for years, I had never touched a video camera before. (Union rules). But it was not hard to learn, and in a few days, I had some pretty good stuff. And by living with the family, 24/7 I got their trust and got a kind of access and intimacy that you just can’t achieve in conventional TV.

I watched 3-4 stories that I know were done by former photographers (one was old enough to be my contemporary!). By and large, they were great. One, about a girl with cancer and her team’s support for her, nearly brought me to tears.

The stories were more personal, more close-up. I was impressed by the better use of natural sound, allowing people to speak their emotions. There was no dropoff in quality from using little DV cameras and laptop edit stations.

I wish I could say I missed the reporter involvement, but I didn’t. I’m not sure one day is enough to make that judgment and high profile reporters can often bring additional weight and credibility to a story.

I didn’t see much hard news done this way and I’m not sure if the technique can work as well. It might be, for harder news, two man crews still offer an advantage.

Watching a few newscasts, I didn’t come off with the feeling that something was different. However, there were differences I would have probably latched onto over time: less repetition and more stories covered from more locations. People complain about repetition and missed coverage now.

Is this the coming trend? Absolutely. There’s no way to hold this back over the long term.

The question will be more how to let it happen. There are unions (I am a member of AFTRA, for instance) and contracts with work rules. No one wants to be squeezed out. No one wants to be marginalized. No one wants to be made less important or earn less money. Certainly no one wants to lose their job.

What is the obligation from company to employee, or employee to company, after a relationship of years or decades?

Though WKRN hasn’t cut back on staff while transitioning to this technology, it has to be something managers and owners look at. Certainly Michael Rosenblum, the force behind all this makes his disdain for our large legacy TV operations known.

This is a trend I will follow with great interest. But, like I said, whether I end up liking it or not, it will come. It can’t be stopped.

JetBlue Emergency Update

When JetBlue’s Airbus A320 landed with its nose gear perpendicular to its motion, I wondered if anyone would try and connect this incident with JetBlue’s maintanence, performed in El Salvador and primarily by mechanics not certified by the FAA.

JetBlue doesn’t even fly out of the US, except to get its planes repaired or maintained.

Today the story hit the Washington Post. I’ve attached their story to the link below.

Continue reading “JetBlue Emergency Update”

Katrina Timeline Straightening

I am one of those people who firmly believe FEMA and/or the National Guard should have been in New Orleans as soon as the wind began to die down. However, a great misconception most people have is the flooding started around the time the storm peaked.

Here’s what I wrote around 3:00 AM EDT Tuesday morning. By then the storm had moved north and New Orleans no longer had hurricane conditions.

Rick Sanchez was on the air, speaking by phone with someone from Tulane Hospital in New Orleans. The hospital’s spokesperson was talking about water – rising water.

The hospital had seen no real flooding while Hurricane Katrina passed by, but tonight, water had begun rushing in and it was rising at an alarming rate.

I could hear the fear in her voice as she described the water level rising an inch every five minutes. That’s a foot an hour. Already there was six feet of water outside the hospital. Soon, water would reach the level of their emergency generators on the second floor.

Sanchez was taken aback. I’m not sure he originally understood what she was saying. It was so unexpected – so out of context.

She said a levee keeping Lake Ponchartrain out of New Orleans had been breached. The cut in the levee was two blocks long and water was rushing in unimpeded. Even if there were pumps working, and she wasn’t sure there were, they wouldn’t be able to keep up with this deluge.

On CNN, Rick Sanchez kept asking questions, but it was obvious this woman wanted to get off the phone. Speaking to him wasn’t going to help her.

I heard terror in her voice.

The hospital had to get its patients out. Its patients were by and large critical. The only way to move them would be by helicopter and FEMA would be needed for that.

The other all news stations are in their usual reruns. I have no way of knowing if this is true. If it is, this is New Orleans’ worst fears are realized. Lake Ponchartrain could inundate the city.

As far as I can tell, that was the first national report of flooding in New Orleans.

From Editor & Publisher: On Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff told Tim Russert that one reason for the delay in rushing federal aid to the Gulf Coast was that “everyone” thought the crisis had passed when the storm left town: “I remember on Tuesday morning picking up newspapers and I saw headlines, ‘New Orleans Dodged The Bullet.'”

So, maybe that was what Chertoff thought on Tuesday… but where was he on Monday? Even before the flooding, New Orleans was in great need. The city was without power. Windows were blown out all over the city. Buildings had been destroyed. People were homeless or were housed in shelters with no food, water or sanitary facilities.

Yes, the flooding came late, but wasn’t anyone there surveying the damage or deciding what kind of support the city would need before then? Even before the flooding, the city had suffered a tragedy.

Why was he depending on newspapers (or any media) for his information?

Website Self Examination

Over the past day or two, I have removed two comments from readers. The comments were well thought out and appropriate for the subjects they were attached to.

This is probably a good time to explain why I censored my own blog and how I censor myself on a daily basis.

What I write here is the truth, as I know it. Sometimes I learn, after hitting the ‘save’ button, I was wrong. I usually leave my own misstatements online (sometimes with an addendum). That way, this site becomes a real ‘permanent record’, warts and all.

If you’ve read long enough, you know I’m not above criticizing or question myself. What you may not realize is, there are lots of people I won’t criticize and subjects I won’t touch.

This blog is the truth. It is not the whole truth.

I will not publish things my family has asked me to keep private. I don’t criticize friends. There is no partisan political talk (and that’s what was deleted yesterday).

Here’s an example of what I’ve done.

Yesterday, I cited President Bush’s short address on the flooding from Hurricane Katrina. Then I criticized our response. I made sure to clearly state the decisions I was criticizing were made by others, not the president.

If I felt the president was at fault – I would have printed nothing.

That’s not because he’s president (presidents are fair game). It’s because he is a political partisan. On this blog, that’s off limits.

If you run for political office, I will do as much as I can to avoid saying anything which might help or hurt your political chances or the chances of your supporters. In fact, the easy way is to avoid mentioning you at all.

The same goes for work. I have a great job, but I will only mention it in a peripheral way. If I have a conflict or disagreement with my bosses, don’t expect to see it here.

On this blog I will never discuss local Connecticut television. I will talk about network or cable issues, but I’m an employee and I respect the privacy I believe most bosses want from their employees.

I try not to put anything in the blog which will have to be tempered to comply with my other policies. That means there are subjects I don’t touch because they might break through to work, partisan politics or family… even if they don’t intrude on the first post.

Walking this line has not always been easy. I do have a political bent. I don’t always agree with my boss. Sometimes family members do things which are curious at best and I’d like to discuss.

This isn’t the best policy for a newspaper or TV news operation, but it is for this particular blog. I thought you’d be a better reader by hearing it from me.

Blogger’s note: I do often go back (like right now) and re-edit or change my work. I’ll change words and clean up bad grammar. I never change the meaning of what I’ve already said. Often the original posting, which seemed good at the time, does not read clearly. If I had an editor, this would not be a problem.

Blurring The Line Between Old and New Media

I was just on the Washington Post site, looking for more on the Watergate story. I am of an age where this was a critically important story. The Vietnam war was raging. I perceived President Nixon as a threat to the 22 year old me – whether that’s defensible or not at this point.

Even today, 30+ years after the fact, I want more on this story.

The Washington Post website had a 3:02 video interview with Bob Woodward. Below the video were their credits – 2 shooters and an editor. The Post had their own reporter interviewing Woodward. I’m not sure whether he was a dedicated video reporter or someone from the print side.

The video was preceded by a commercial. It was a :15 for Microsoft.

They – newspapers – want to get into my business. And why not? They already have the reporting staff. When the news product is delivered request-reply, making every story compelling and entertaining enough for someone in Seymour to care about Stonington, isn’t necessary.

This is depressing.

Newspapers are struggling. Their circulation has generally trended down. They need to sustain revenue and maximize their resources.

TV doesn’t get a free pass either. Cable channels and even the micro networks take some small audience – audience that once was defaulted to us – and there are dozens, maybe hundreds, of these tiny digital niche networks.

Will this bring on the next Golden Age of video? Will we see more quality or quantity or both? Who knows? It will definitely be different than what we’re seeing now.

Whatever it is that finally sits in TV’s current place in society will be more sharply targeted and the content more responsive to the needs of the people watching. Budgets will probably be lower, because niche audiences won’t be able to support higher.

Technology has already started to bring down the cost of TV production. It is easier and cheaper today than ever before to put something together and make it available to an audience. That trend isn’t over yet.