What I'm Reading: June 9, 2016

Cable reinvents the (news) wheel -- Politico writer Alex Weprin suggests that the 24 hour cable news outlets are changing for the digital age. Weprin believes they have dropped the "news wheel" format of providing "headline" coverage each half-hour of the day, and are instead choosing to focus in-depth on one or two stories, with a mix of documentary/reality/entertainment programming. Much of that "in-depth" coverage consists of your standard "two talking heads debate the topic" style of coverage.

The Wait for the Mugshot: an explanation for why the media had limited options on the picture to chose when showing the picture of Stanford rapist Brock Turner. A response to a popular meme.

Watch This Wednesday: The Big Board

 

TV stations love monitors. On the anchor desk, behind the anchors, next to the anchors, on the floor... if there's a flat surface (and sometimes a curved one), you can put a monitor there. And the bigger, the better, apparently. The trick is figuring out how to put something other than a very generic cycling graphic in that monitor without becoming distracting. "Good Morning America" recently unveiled their new "big board." Decide for yourself if it works or not.

(The image at the top of the article came from this Youtube video. It's kinda cool too.)

Who to Follow Friday: 6-3-2016

For my first one back, lets go with me: @StoryShiftBlog
I promise, in the future the suggestions I make will be much less self-serving.

Throwback Thursday: forcing a square peg into a round hole (revisiting "Just a "touch" of news, now this" three years later)

Three years is a small eternity in the Shift the media is going through. In September of 2013, I wrote about TouchVision and NowThisNews. It should be telling that I linked to the NTN website, but not to TouchVision's. That's because TouchVision folded, while NowThisNews is expanding in the digital space.
TouchVision folded in January of 2016. Media coverage did not explain why the operation founded, but I think part of the reason may be its central approach: to bring a modern digital aesthetic to broadcast television. Simply put: they were not just trying to stick a square peg into a round hole; they were trying to push the digital stream through a piece of glass.

NowThisNews focuses on making videos for the digital native: they are quick, impactful, bright, colorful, and optimized for mobile. Many work as well with audio as without. They are fully optimized for their medium. TouchVision pursued a similar approach, except they attempted to make their presentation work on both digital and broadcast, and I think that's their problem. TouchVision learned the hard way that you really can't be all things to all people. If I want to watch short and sweet videos with a little edge in a short amount of time, I'm going to watch on a mobile device, and I'm going to hold it in my hand, and maybe even share it over social media. If I feel like sitting down at my television, and I decide to watch a news program, it is because I'm in a mood to ingest media in a longer form that lends itself to the bigger screen, and the extended viewing time that comes with sitting down in front of a television.

There are some instances where products for one medium can be repurposed for the other. TV Stations have been clipping video from newscasts to play on their digital platforms since the time that their only "digital platform" was a the rudimentary websites of the 1990s. Now many broadcasters are posting raw video, and digital only stories. The "Facebook live" revolution is underway, and more and more broadcasters will soon figure out how to do a "Facebook live" presentation that is more sophisticated than simply "hold the phone and point the camera at something while you narrate."

There may even be lessons to learn from what comes after the late news. The Late Night talk shows (think Kimmel, Fallon, SNL, etc.) have found a lot of their digital audience through videos of skits and bits that work well on the broadcast medium, but also have a second life as a sharable digital presentation. They've figured out how to get that square peg into the round hole: first, sand down the corners.

Watch This Wednesday: The Case for Radical Collaboration

Many newsrooms are collaborating with other media outlets to deal with the struggles of generating exclusive content, and to reduce costs. Whether it's a tv station that supplies voicers to it's co-owned radio stations, a tv weather department that provides weather data for a newspaper, or partnerships between private and public (PBS) news outlets to put on debates... collaboration between "competing" media outlets is nothing new.

What is new is the idea of a traditional media outlet teaming up with an outlet that we do not normally think as a place where we would find news, like a theatre, or a museum, or even a street corner. That's the kind of "radical collaboration" that Cole Goins spoke about at a Reynolds Institute event in March of 2016. The video is about 25 minutes, but each minute of it is thought provoking.

And if you don't want to watch the video, here's the Slideshare.

I'm back

It's been a while since I've posted here. Now, I'm back. I'm energized, and I've got new ideas and new knowledge to share.

A little personal update: I started the blog mostly as a way to keep myself busy and sharp during a period of unemployment. That ended a while ago, and I've been busy since. The current job has been both good and bad. It was a big step back on my career path, out of management and back on weekends. I also shifted from a very "big J" place to a place that lives, breathes, and eats breaking news. I've had to recover and develop some breaking news skills that I had let atrophy, and I'm better for it. I'm also in a newsroom that embraces digital storytelling, so I'm learning some new skills. I've also found new resources, and I'm looking to share those, as well as my own thoughts.

I'm also changing the name of this blog. It used to be "ReinventingTheMedia." Well, that's just pretentious. I'm not reinventing anything. In reality, journalism is in a constant shift, but the most important thing is still telling a story. So, for now, I'm landing on "StoryShift" as a title. If you have a better suggestion, let me know.

"Dead" Brings Life to Second Screen

Second Screen Experience for The Walking Dead

The "Second Screen" is one of those buzzwords in media circles. People in news say they want to own the second screen, but most of their effort is targeted to standalone websites and phone and tablet apps. The non-fiction world could learn a lesson in second screen appeal from our fictional cousins who make The Walking Dead.

Quiz

The "sync experience" for The Walking Dead is a website-based experienced timed to coincide with live airings of television episodes. The content includes quizes, polls, video clips, and (tv) screen grabs presented at key moments. After a gruesome walker kill, the website will ask you to rank it on a bloodiness scale. When a symbolic gesture or item appears on the screen, the website will remind you of the significance (helpful for late entries into the series.)

Ad on Second Screen During a Commercial Break

The sync experience even includes ads, timed to offer themselves to viewers at a time when AMC is running promos rather than paid commercials, wisely making revenue and not conflicting with those who pay (more) for a broadcast slot. Each (new) episode of The Walking Dead starts with a reminder to start the "sync experience."

Talking Dead

And the final innovation for the "second screen" effort is bringing it back to the first screen. After new episodes we get Talking Dead, an hour-long show hosted by nerd royalty Chris Hardwick interviewing two celebrity "super fans" and one actor or producer from the show. This show incorporates digital interaction with the audience by displaying pictures from the "Dead Yourself" app, twitter questions, and more.

So how can news learn from this? While it would be next to impossible to automate a "news synch" to a live newscast, you could certainly do a "live tweet" or even host a Google+ Chat, possibly run by a (not the line) producer with the anchors and reporters joining in. Depending on crew availability (and break times, and union rules, etc.) there could also be a "News Extra" that runs after a newscast ends, or before it starts.)