Trying to Stay Relevant as the Media Sands Shift – TV Newser Summit

by vergenewmedia on March 10, 2009 · 27 comments

Yesterday I had the opportunity to chat with the folks at TV Newser on their podast Morning Media Menu, as a preview of my panel participation at today’s TV Newser Summit in New York City.  We covered a wide range of topics, from how I began exploring emergent, social media, to how traditional media has taken a shine to new media tools like Twitter.  Steve Garfield called into the show and talked about the Today Show’s Jamie Gangel and her introduction to Twitter last week.

You can see @jamiegangel’s interaction with the Twitter community here.  I’ve added some of the comments to my favorites.  As part of that story, Jamie spoke with David Gregory who has really embraced the spirit of dialogue and smart community on Twitter.  I’m guessing my most quotable soundbite from the podcast is:

“We’re Moving From Meet the Press, and Now We Can Meet the People”

Follow Meet the Press moderator @davidgregory and you’ll watch it happen.  He understands the value of tapping into the collective intelligence of the very smart group of people on Twitter.  Twitter is a tremendous equalizer.  The community there will give corporate titans, rock stars, Hollywood celebrities, media notables, and politicians one chance to listen and contribute, and get it right.  If they fail in those areas they get called on it. In a recent Howard Kurtz article, ABC newser Terry Moran crows about how Twitter counters:

the whole notion that newscasters speak from Olympus

- Terry Moran, ABC News

I really don’t think the folks on Twitter ever suffered from that misapprehension.

i’m really sad that I’m not able to make SXSW this year,  because it’s a great conference to discover where much of this is heading.  But last year at that very conference I witnessed first hand the challenge faced by traditional media.  As I ate breakfast at the hotel restaurant a waiter – transfixed by the talking head on the cable news show, and apparently at odds with the pundit – began shouting at the TV.  It occurred  to me that this was a rather inefficient feedback loop.  Social web tools like Twitter now give mainstream media the opportunity to do something they haven’t always been in a position to do that well.. LISTEN.  But as Twitter friend Adele McAlear put it, traditional media must understand this is about  JOINING the conversation, not controlling it.

Did you ever have control of the conversation? No. It always went on in people’s living rooms. Difference: Now you can hear it

@adelemcalear via Twitter

Still, these are turbulent times for media. Part of my motivation for embracing social web technology is precisely because it has shown to be a tremendous disruptor of traditional media and I need to watch where all of this is heading and determine where I fit in.  And as serial consultants like Michael Rosenblum, the architects of what may be the sunset of my craft, engage in schadenfreude tinged rhetoric on the web,  I’m left feeling both hopeful and fearful of what lies ahead for media workers like me.

Being asked to sit aside a panel of very savvy media influencers is a very great honor indeed.  I just hope I live up to the billing.  At the end of the day, I’m just a news cameraman try to stay relevant in a rapidly changing media landscape.

Sphere: Related Content

Tagged as: David Gregory, Jim Long, new media, newmediajim, social media, TV Newser, Twitter

  • http://funk.co.uk/music Dean Whitbread

    It’s going to take a while for people to get that the change in communication runs deeper than just tone – it’s substantive. But, I don’t expect everyone to embrace it, just the same. We’re past the early adopter phase by now, right? Here come the middle adopters..

  • http://banannie.com/blog Annie Boccio

    If you were “just a news cameraman” you wouldn’t have tens of thousands of genuine followers on Twitter. You were ahead of the pack on this, Jim, and you belong up at the top of this discussion. The fallout may be messy but the best & smartest will come through unscathed I think.

  • http://tinahdee.com tina gasperson

    “traditional media must understand this is about JOINING the conversation, not controlling it.” – so true and wise.

  • http://cookingupastory.com Rebecca Gerendasy

    Agreed with Annie, Jim – you’re not *just* a cameraman! You’ve been an inspiration to many – behind the lens, in front of the lens, or even w/o a lens! It’s about the conversation, the giving of information, bouncing around ideas, and listening. It’s about time traditional media gets it. Now I just wish they would start focusing on stories that weren’t so full of death and destruction – especially local news. So many good stories out there, ones that have a positive effect on peoples lives. I’m sure you come across them all the time. I know I do.

  • Patty Hartwell

    Could not agree more with Annie Boccio – you are beyond being “just” a news cameraman. Perhaps because you are one of the behind the scenes folks in TV news (editors, cameraman, producers, etc) , you understand and can see how dated the news from on high, one way distribution of information model truly is – and how controlling it is/needs to be, in it’s very marrow. That need to control goes to the very heart of the problem. Part of the reason for this is that news organizations are not flat, they are deeply heirarchichal. News organizations will have to get out from under this psychology of control, in order to survive. The conversation is happening around them and will continue to happen, and they cannot control it. Their choice is whether they join in or not.

  • http://www.vimeo.com/deancsmith Dean C. Smith

    The world will always need the story. We are the storytellers and we are the new content producers. You’re leading by example Jim, thank you!

  • http://www.rosenblumtv.com Rosenblum

    Hey Jim
    I agree with all of the above. You may have started as ‘just’ a cameraman, but you long ago left that behind. You are well ahead of others with whom you began, and you should be a model for where they can go to survive that shift that has already begun.

    Having been a lightning rod for criticism for many years (and called everything from a pig to a dog), I am not overly sensitive, yet I think ‘serial consultant’ is a bit harsh. I think I have delivered a fairly constant (and some might say monotonous) line for more than 20 years now.

    In any event, I think that your place far more properly is on the panel in front of the cameras, as opposed to behind them. Get used to it.

  • http://www.adelemcalear.com Adele McAlear

    I think Patty hit it on the head: “news organizations are not flat, they are deeply heirarchical.” It is the pecking order of things within mainstream news, the command and control, authoritarian attitude, both inward and outward facing, that is making adaptation to a dialogue so difficult. Despite being nimble and quick to respond with your camera on the ground, the chains of command amongst mainstream news media, as parts of global corporations, don’t turn on a dime. Jim, you’ve worked on the inside for almost 3 years to help educate your peers and the-powers-that-be about the changes besetting your industry. I’m glad you no longer look like the crazy uncle.

  • Pingback: Digital Clippings

  • http://vergenewmedia.com Jim Long

    Michael, If you call yourself the “father of videojournalism” and tell people like me that my career is effectively over, well you’re going to get called a couple of names :) besides “serial consultant” isn’t too terrible. In fact that might be my next career!

  • http://tomnotes.blogspot.com Tom Murphy

    Twitter and its social media counterparts are great but so is TV. I don’t think there is a need to set up a media schism where old skool = bad and new school = good.

    For TV to stay relevant it has to focus on what it does really well and which other forms of media do not offer as much.

    For instance this very evening I watched a programme made by NBC and reshown here in Ireland about the ‘Octomom.’ There was an in depth interview with the mother, Nadya Suleman, a well laid out story that joined up the events that led up to the births and footage of the mother at home with the kids plus some pertinent comments from the kids themselves on the new additions to the family.

    I had heard about the multiple births as an event from twitter and had gleaned facts from the web and newspapers but it was only a TV programme such as this one from NBC that could bring it all together and give me a visual/visceral understanding of the life of that woman and her kids and the issues surrounding them.

    That is just one recent example.

    I am confident and hopeful that there will always be a demand for that sort of story-telling.

    It is not an either/or situation but a constant morphing of how we communicate according to the tools we have available to us.

    Keep up the good work.

  • Pingback: Tom Murphy - Notes: A Comment made on Jim Long's blog

  • http://marlettsmith.com Dean

    In the middle 1990s we heard that the Internet will change everything. The Internet is doing to society as the printing-press had done to European dark ages. For good or bad our ways of living is changing.

  • http://amyruben.wordpress.com/ Amy Ruben

    Joining the conversation is key. This article reminded me of a quote that I recently read:
    “It is important for PR to involve regular people through social media to provide observations that humanize and connect, so that the ‘voice of authority’ is friend and confidante.” Richard Edelman, CEO, Edelman PR

    • http://www.searchengineoptimisation.com Phil

      Thats well commented and i agree with you to have success in social media, take part with active mind in conversations

  • Phil

    Thats well commented and i agree with you to have success in social media, take part with active mind in conversations

  • Phil

    Thats well commented and i agree with you to have success in social media, take part with active mind in conversations

  • Phil

    Thats well commented and i agree with you to have success in social media, take part with active mind in conversations

  • Phil

    Thats well commented and i agree with you to have success in social media, take part with active mind in conversations

  • Phil

    Thatu2019s well put, and I do agree with you – to have success in social media, take part in more conversations and offer a more active input.

  • Phil

    Thatu2019s well put, and I do agree with you – to have success in social media, take part in more conversations and offer a more active input.

  • Phil

    Thatu2019s well put, and I do agree with you – to have success in social media, take part in more conversations and offer a more active input.

  • Phil

    Thatu2019s well put, and I do agree with you – to have success in social media, take part in more conversations and offer a more active input.

  • Phil

    Thatu2019s well put, and I do agree with you – to have success in social media, take part in more conversations and offer a more active input.

  • Phil

    Thatu2019s well put, and I do agree with you – to have success in social media, take part in more conversations and offer a more active input.

  • Phil

    Thatu2019s well put, and I do agree with you – to have success in social media, take part in more conversations and offer a more active input.

  • Phil

    Thatu2019s well put, and I do agree with you – to have success in social media, take part in more conversations and offer a more active input.

Previous post:

Next post: