StribTV

It says something about the quality and value of TV news, local TV news in particular, when a guy suggests a big city newspaper like the Star Tribune demonstrate a hipness to the coming convergence of internet and television and smart people react like he’s suggesting polluting Perrier with dioxin.

In the previous post I argued that if Strib publisher, Par Ridder, and his Avista overseers had any inclination to invest in the paper’s future — and I see no evidence that they do — they could begin by dipping a toe in the “televisionation” of the paper’s best assets. “Television” being a loaded word, fraught with connotations of nit-wits, blowhards and pop effluvia, several of my regular readers reacted quite loudly.

There was this from, “jimmy”:

“Great strategy. Cut staff and then give those who survive a new medium they’ve had no experience with to feed every day. Both the paper and the website are bound to get better. It just makes so much sense. Can’t wait for the Bloomington City Planning pieces to hit the web.”

And this from the, “frogman of grant”:

“No thanks. I’ll see your numbing prospect of Katherine Kersten and James Lileks in high-def and raise you Lou Dobbs, Joe Scarborough, and Tucker Carlson. I mean, enough already.

Worse, it seems that if I want to send you a snotty message like this three years hence I’ll have to somehow manage it via my TV.

Maybe I’ll just read a book instead.”

If the concept here were to repeat all the witless, dime-deep marketing spin and journalistic irrelevancies of local TV news and cable, I wouldn’t bother, and I certainly wouldn’t disagree with either gentleman’s concerns. But the whole point is a ready and relatively cheap opportunity to offer something far better. We’re talking an interactive and on-demand website from which you the reader/viewer not only gets all the printed copy of the present Strib but also a video component built around writers and reporters with established reputations. It would never be “all TV”, and there would be no reason outside of basic editorial judgment to limit “reports” to something less than the time it takes to tell the story — and maybe offer analysis.

More to the point, unlike today’s TV news, where you’re held hostage by six minutes of redundant sports or the sight of Lou Dobbs once again blowing a feeder tube over immigration “amnesty”, you have total command over the menu of options. You can ignore sports or the opinion page entirely, or click away to literally anything else that is in the paper that day — or has been in it for months or years back.

My underlying point is that newspapers — ironically — are better equipped to deal with the “televisionated” future than local TV newsrooms are. The latter have long ago been reduced to skeletal operations selling cornball “glamour” more than anything of depth in order to supply the 30%-40% profit margins THEIR owners have demanded. (Newspapers really are just arriving late to the game of strip-mining news operations for short-term profit.)

As far as the “look” of StribTV, think more C-SPAN than a gorgeously shot KARE-11 sweeps piece on migrating ducks, at least at the start.

Here are a couple examples of what is already being done. First, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post providing some interesting background and context for Al Gore testifying on Capitol Hill before Oklahoma flat-Earther, James Inhofe.

And then, as an example of the consumer/sales possibilities, here’s consumer tech writer, David Pogue of the New York Times.

Or, (just to annoy him), my old pal, David Carr from the Times doing a ditty on the New York Auto Show. (Carr vows this was a one time only deal. But I liked it.)

No individual reader reads the entire newspaper. “Consumers” cherry pick the subjects and writers they’re interested in. What could and should come next is a way to give those cherry pickers more of what they already like, and at no significant new cost in terms of hardware.

(In the comments, “TV Guy” correctly points out that Hi-Def cameras and editing decks are cheap and not particularly difficult to learn, certainly not by professional shooters already on staff at most papers. And hell, Ridder and Avista have already covered the cost of a dozen cameras and editing decks by firing the sweet old ladies at the switchboard.)

Can’t stand Nick Coleman? Experience the thrill of cutting Nick off in mid-sentence and clicking over to Katherine Kersten. No interest in Billy Friedkin’s director’s comments on the latest re-release of, “The French Connection”? To hell with Randy Salas’ DVD review, hit up the Strib’s Capitol Hill reporters grilling Minority Leader Marty Seifert.

Would a stray newspaper wonk go nutty with prolonged exposure to a TV camera and turn into a spittle-flinging caricature of Chris Matthews? Oh, probably. But in an interactive world, he disappears at the click of the button and instead you’re sitting in on the editorial board’s discussions over who to endorse in the next election. The potential for features — with architecture coverage, TV and music reviews, etc. are obvious. Likewise for sports, think of the possibilities for Pat Reusse to goad AJ Pierzynski the next time the Sox are in town.

Could say, WCCO-TV, do something like this … and with better looking people, (I mean, they’ve already got Pat Kessler …)? Sure. But no local TV station is ever going to make the investment in staff to approach the size of a major newspaper — at least not a paper like the Star Tribune of today, before it’s gutted by Ridder and Avista.

Obviously, there are technological advances required here beyond just digital TVs and higher-powered servers. Not far over the horizon, for example, are highly portable, flexible/”foldable” ergonomically appealing screens for downloading all internet content, including that from major newspapers. (Considering the carbon footprint of forests leveled for newsprint and fleets of trucks and cars to deliver the paper version of the paper, there’s even more to said for “televisionating” ASAP. And hell, if you’re so hopelessly old school you have to feel paper in your hands you can always download the damn thing.)