It has been called, “The Day Television Grew Up”. It was November 22, 1963 and midday soap operas were interrupted with terrible news: President Kennedy had been assassinated. For the next four days, we gathered around our television sets as the networks ran non-stop coverage of the assassination. Before that weekend, Americans watched a few hours of TV a night. After the assassination, the TV set became a permanent part of the family.
I couldn’t help but think about this past weekend as I watched the video coming in from the protests in Iran. What has so many upset is that there appear to be voting irregularities calling the results of the election into question. But telling the story hasn’t been the work of professional journalists. The Iranian Regime took steps weeks ago to cut the flow if pictures and information to the outside world. What they have accomplished in reality is the eye-opening truth that cell phones, PDAs, and laptops have turned private citizens into the eyes and ears of the world.
It only makes sense. The news business has always been about informing people. Technology has taken it now to a whole, new level. From the streets of Iran, we are seeing images of the battle for democracy – not shot by some professional cameraman, but by individual citizens using a cell phone.
If tyrants -- and really, governments everywhere -- learn nothing else from this, let them understand this: It’s all about “truth” and “transparency”. Clamping the power of censorship on the media no longer guarantees the story won’t be told. I keep wondering when the government of Iran will cut access to the internet, but in reality they can’t. There are too many businesses that need it to survive. Think about it: thousands of ordinary citizens, armed with cell phones and video cameras, telling the story.
You know, we should never forget that the most dramatic images of the Kennedy assassination were not shot by a professional journalist, but an ordinary citizen named Abraham Zerpruder, carrying an 8mm home movie camera. Perhaps not too surprizingly, the most dramatic images from Iran, have been captured for history by the 21st Century equivilent of that camera.
In the Los Angeles Times, Jeffrey Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School for Communication, is quoted as saying: "What the Iranian leadership didn't seem to understand, as they went through the traditional methods of censorship, is that everybody is now a reporter." Make no mistake, those sending the pictures do have an agenda, just as the government that is trying to stop them does. Even the news media airing the pictures argueably have an agenda. But the important thing to remember here is that the information itself can't be stopped.
The whole world really is watching.
Downing Bolls
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
The DTV Switch: Mostly a Smooth Move
Well, there is good news to report. The great DTV switch happened without much fanfare, or fallout. The technology publication Information Week reports in its online edition today that the great majority of television-watching Americans weren’t affected by the change to digital broadcasting. Why? Because they receive their signals from cable and satellite providers.
The FCC reports receiving about 300,000 calls on Friday about a third of them dealing with problems getting the converter box to work. Of course, that also means that two-thirds of the calls dealt with some other complaint. About six million people were not ready for the switch and were left without TV.
Before broadcasters start slapping themselves on the back for a job well done, however, perhaps it would be a good idea to go back and read Paul Farhi’s piece in Sunday’s The Washington Post. Farhi reminds us that there is still more to do. “TV stations and their broadcast network partners lobbied Congress to award them new channels free of charge. Then, they asked lawmakers for permission to use their second channels to create digital broadcasts, which could be used for all sorts of services. Asked last week for a list of the interactive services that newly digital TV stations will be providing in their communities, the National Association of Broadcaster said it couldn't name any.” In the grand scheme of things, says Farhi, TV stations are using their digital powers right now to simply broadcast more of the same thing they have been broadcasting all along, albeit with better sound and picture quality.
With all of the local furor recently over interruptions of TV shows to broadcast severe weather information, I can certainly envision a time, perhaps not too far away, when viewers could be sent to a secondary channel for continuing weather coverage. Stations could also put extended coverage of local breaking news events on that channel.
I know that broadcasters right now are sort of sitting back and catching their breath. The changeover has not been without its problems, just as any undertaking of this kind is. It is my hope, however, that catching our breath doesn’t develop into an extended period of foot-dragging. We have this new technology at our fingertips. The real question is: what will we do with it?
Those are my thoughts. What are yours?
Downing Bolls
The FCC reports receiving about 300,000 calls on Friday about a third of them dealing with problems getting the converter box to work. Of course, that also means that two-thirds of the calls dealt with some other complaint. About six million people were not ready for the switch and were left without TV.
Before broadcasters start slapping themselves on the back for a job well done, however, perhaps it would be a good idea to go back and read Paul Farhi’s piece in Sunday’s The Washington Post. Farhi reminds us that there is still more to do. “TV stations and their broadcast network partners lobbied Congress to award them new channels free of charge. Then, they asked lawmakers for permission to use their second channels to create digital broadcasts, which could be used for all sorts of services. Asked last week for a list of the interactive services that newly digital TV stations will be providing in their communities, the National Association of Broadcaster said it couldn't name any.” In the grand scheme of things, says Farhi, TV stations are using their digital powers right now to simply broadcast more of the same thing they have been broadcasting all along, albeit with better sound and picture quality.
With all of the local furor recently over interruptions of TV shows to broadcast severe weather information, I can certainly envision a time, perhaps not too far away, when viewers could be sent to a secondary channel for continuing weather coverage. Stations could also put extended coverage of local breaking news events on that channel.
I know that broadcasters right now are sort of sitting back and catching their breath. The changeover has not been without its problems, just as any undertaking of this kind is. It is my hope, however, that catching our breath doesn’t develop into an extended period of foot-dragging. We have this new technology at our fingertips. The real question is: what will we do with it?
Those are my thoughts. What are yours?
Downing Bolls
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Dish It to Downing: When You See "The Light"
Epiphany – “a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience”. (Webster’s Dictionary)
I had an epiphany last week and it has to do with “Dish It to Downing”. I spend a lot of time trying to explain to people “why” we do what we do or why something looked the way it did on TV. Often, it appears like I am trying to defend our actions by attacking the comments of the viewer. I can assure you that never was my intent and if it came off that way, I owe you an apology. So, if you have ever written to make a comment and I offended you with my answer, I am sorry. You see, during that brief moment of revelation and enlightenment, I realized that most of the time, the viewer is absolutely right.
Take weather cut-ins for example: I recently defended the repeated program interruptions by our meteorologists. I still feel that getting the information out there is important, but it occurred to me that what angers people so much about the interruptions is their frequency and the way we do them. We get on and put the radar up on the screen and spend the next five minutes talking about an event that hasn’t happened yet as if it is a sure thing. Ask any storm chaser worth his stuff and they will tell you that there are no guarantees when it comes to tornadoes forming. In fact, they are so rare that we have a little joke: the best way to keep a tornado from touching down is scan it with a Doppler radar! Tornadoes are what they have always been - a freak occurance of nature.
Since the way we gather information has completely changed (thanks to technology); maybe the way we present the weather should change, too. In an effort to give the viewer as much advance warning as possible, we have inadvertently increased the length and number of program interruptions. It’s like the old days of TV when people use to sit and watch the test pattern for hours, only now they are sitting there looking at a radar screen, watching a storm that may not even be hitting the ground. We are forcing people to become weather zombies instead of informed viewers. I believe the TV viewer has a point -- Maybe we do need to sit down and try to come up with a better, less obtrusive way to alert the public about weather events that are developing, but haven’t happened yet. Maybe a beeper signal on the screen with an alert message that reads: “Developing Tornado: Doppler radar indicating a developing tornado six miles west of Hamlin. Take cover now.” The only way that is going to happen is for those of us in the TV business to start sitting down with those of you who use our services and try to see things from your perspective, instead of getting defensive about what you are saying. I think any intelligent person would be the first to say that sometimes we need to cut-in and stay on. But, not every time. We need to ask our viewers what they think is appropriate advance warning; then listen to what they have to say – not tell them “how” it’s going to be.
I don’t guess we’ll ever know until we try. Who knows, it might just be an epiphany.
Downing Bolls
I had an epiphany last week and it has to do with “Dish It to Downing”. I spend a lot of time trying to explain to people “why” we do what we do or why something looked the way it did on TV. Often, it appears like I am trying to defend our actions by attacking the comments of the viewer. I can assure you that never was my intent and if it came off that way, I owe you an apology. So, if you have ever written to make a comment and I offended you with my answer, I am sorry. You see, during that brief moment of revelation and enlightenment, I realized that most of the time, the viewer is absolutely right.
Take weather cut-ins for example: I recently defended the repeated program interruptions by our meteorologists. I still feel that getting the information out there is important, but it occurred to me that what angers people so much about the interruptions is their frequency and the way we do them. We get on and put the radar up on the screen and spend the next five minutes talking about an event that hasn’t happened yet as if it is a sure thing. Ask any storm chaser worth his stuff and they will tell you that there are no guarantees when it comes to tornadoes forming. In fact, they are so rare that we have a little joke: the best way to keep a tornado from touching down is scan it with a Doppler radar! Tornadoes are what they have always been - a freak occurance of nature.
Since the way we gather information has completely changed (thanks to technology); maybe the way we present the weather should change, too. In an effort to give the viewer as much advance warning as possible, we have inadvertently increased the length and number of program interruptions. It’s like the old days of TV when people use to sit and watch the test pattern for hours, only now they are sitting there looking at a radar screen, watching a storm that may not even be hitting the ground. We are forcing people to become weather zombies instead of informed viewers. I believe the TV viewer has a point -- Maybe we do need to sit down and try to come up with a better, less obtrusive way to alert the public about weather events that are developing, but haven’t happened yet. Maybe a beeper signal on the screen with an alert message that reads: “Developing Tornado: Doppler radar indicating a developing tornado six miles west of Hamlin. Take cover now.” The only way that is going to happen is for those of us in the TV business to start sitting down with those of you who use our services and try to see things from your perspective, instead of getting defensive about what you are saying. I think any intelligent person would be the first to say that sometimes we need to cut-in and stay on. But, not every time. We need to ask our viewers what they think is appropriate advance warning; then listen to what they have to say – not tell them “how” it’s going to be.
I don’t guess we’ll ever know until we try. Who knows, it might just be an epiphany.
Downing Bolls
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