Searching for the Fit

I read this article on C|Net about CNN starting an on-line video repository a'la You Tube several times.  One for each reaction.

I'll work my way through them in order of social acceptability.

1. Evolution

I noted the other day that NBC was using YouTube footage in their broadcasts.  According to the C|Net article CNN does the same thing.  The blogosphere has been very hard on mainstream media - seeing them as dinosaurs that "don't get it".  I have said as much myself.

But supposing you are mainstream media - especially newspapers - and you've been doing business the same way (more or less) for a hundred years.  Rapid change might catch you off guard.

So good on CNN for trying to start their own video repository like You Tube.  This shows that they understand the democratization of news gathering .   

2. Fear

CNN looks at the war coverage on You Tube, complete with historic footage people can search and retreive later, and says "Oh crap."  Suddenly, CNN may not be where the world turns for news or video of real-time events.  Even though CNN is mostly pundit shows now, they still want to be the world's news leader.  You Tube, and things like RocketBoom, are terrifying. 

Not only do these on-line services provide information, but they provide it often without a direct subscription model.  So CNN wants to neutralize a threat by providing an on-line video repository that comes with the implied game of getting your footage on CNN.

3. Greed

As we saw recently, those that own the copyright on history, control the dissemination of history.  Robert Tur wanted to control his slice of history and shut people out from their memories.  CNN saw this and saw the stuff on You Tube and said, "That's a lot of history we can control."  So now they are creating CNN Exchange to gather up that content and hoard it.

My Question

Why not just analyze and report?  Rather than having pundits providing non-nuanced retorts for everything inflamatory that happens - why not actually analyze what is happening and provide in-depth coverage on-line and via television.

Imagine if CNN, rather than trying to encapsulate everything that happens on earth into a 30 second spot, had people from a wide range of think tanks, investigative journalism, and other areas actually provide papers detailing the real underlying issues.

CNN, It doesn't matter in the end if you own a million 30 second shots of people dying in Lebanon.  What matters is that you help the people of the world understand why it is happening, why it is hard to stop and, just maybe, how to have compassion for the people involved and how to avoid such things in the future.

But before that, a very loud commercial from Chevy's SUV division....

Technorati Tags: CNN, time-warner, copyright, robert tur, history, media, mainstream media, chevy

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