Monday, April 16, 2007
Russert on his Career, his Show and his Podcast
The National Association of Broadcasters inducted “Meet the
Press” into its Hall of Fame as the program celebrates its 60th year
on the air. The presentation began with
a video marking highlights of those years:
- The
nine hosts, starting with Martha Roundtree in 1947. (Can you name them all?)
- Presidents
and presidential aspirants.
- Politicos
famous and infamous.
The show’s current moderator, Tim Russert, accepted the award
for MTP, calling the program a national treasure and himself its temporary
custodian.
Other Russert thoughts:
On how he got his start:
A nun in his grade school, who decided his youthful energies
needed to be channeled into something constructive, and put him in charge of
the school newspaper.
On the secret to success as a moderator:
Preparation, discipline and accountability.
On past moderator Lawrence Spivak’s advice to him:
Learn as much as you can about your guest and that person’s
positions – and take the other side in questioning. Be aggressive, persistent, and civil. The show is never about the moderator.
On other forms of political programming:
He supports the advocacy style of some who host cable TV or
talk radio – or who blog.
People who state “this is what I believe” as they conduct
political conversations are important to a democracy. But he believes in a
different role for the host of MTP – one that doesn’t inject his own views into
the conversation. And while TV has
tended to gravitate toward conflict rather than nuance in issues, he strives to
use the limited time he has each week to “encourage, motivate and tweak
curiosity.”
On new media and MTP:
The program is now available over-the-air, online, on cable,
and podcast. Extending its availability
has built rather than fragmented the Sunday TV audience. When told that his program
was the fifth-most-downloaded podcast, Russert said his competitive spirit led
him to ask who was beating him. “When
they told me the first four were music and porn, I shut up.”
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News: The Source That Blogs Are Made Of
During the first hour of the RTNDA convention’s opening panel discussion Sunday night, the only mention of news came during an online video chat moderator Miles O’Brien had with his 14-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter back in their rooms at home in New York. They are cute, personable kids, and, as the children of a network news reporter, they watch more TV and care more about current events than we can safely assume their classmates do.
But it did seem odd that two teenagers not even physically present in the room would be the only ones to address journalism until the session was about two-thirds over. (That doesn’t count Eric Newton of the Knight Foundation, who made a few opening remarks before the panel discussion started. Newton announced a $1.2-million grant to RTNDF’s high school journalism program.)
Representing the new media generation on stage were videobloggers Zadi Diaz, of
http://jetsetshow.com/, and Amanda Congdon, formerly of
Rocketboom. She now works
ABC News , but insisted –- when the J-word actually entered the conversation after more than an hour –- that she has “never claimed to be a journalist.”
O’Brien took the crowd to visit both sites, first watching Diaz do a clever shtick about her pesky, persnickety, inexpensive equipment. She’s charming and comfortable enough on camera to captivate 40- to 50,000 viewers a day, by her count, most of them teens. Then came Congdon’s work, which focused mostly on some unusual video of a backhoe – “or is that a front-hoe?” she asked, adding, “I know ‘ho’ is a bad word.” The footage may have come from an actual newscast somewhere, but that’s about as close as Congdon came to connecting with any actual journalism.
Otherwise, the session was a recitation of buzzwords and catchphrases that have become achingly familiar over the past few years: paradigm shifts, tipping points, 24/7 news, mainstream media, dinosaurs, echo chamber, info-snacking, etc.
The most refreshing moments came toward the end, when the conversation finally left social networking and micro-blogging and turned to reporting. Michael Rosenblum, founder of what he calls the VJ movement, offered an impassioned soliloquy on traditional journalism, exhorting visionary leaders to “burn it down.” Videoblogger Diaz responded by saying she couldn’t quite side with Rosenblum, that she sees a continuing if changing role for actual journalism, both online and off.
Then, in a question-and-answer session that should have begun much, much earlier, a college student from Colorado asked what may have been the question of the night: “If traditional news organizations go out of business,” as Rosenblum predicts, “where will the bloggers get the material they talk about?”
I couldn’t get across the crowded room in time to get the questioner’s name, but to my knowledge, he never did get an answer.
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Sanjaya or City Hall: Give People What They Want?
I am sure the opening session at RTNDA was meant to be provocative and mind expanding. It gave me the creeps.
Michael Rosenblum, a lightning-rod character who evangelizes for the VJ concept, (sort of a newsroom full of one-man-band folks) told the audience that journalists should look at what videos online users watch most online all day and make those stories the core of the evening news.
If they don't choose City Hall stories, he said, we should stop covering City Hall.
I could not help but wonder if, in the early '80s the public would have chosen for journalists to cover the AIDS crisis that we all but ignored for too long. I wonder if we would have chosen to watch stories about the civil rights struggle in the last 50's and early 60's. I wonder if the public would choose Iraq War stories even today.
Let's see what a national newscast might look like based on that recommendation. I will use
Yahoo News' most viewed videos:
Our newscast would include a story about Madonna, a Dear Abby letter, somebody asking President Clinton about American Idol contestant Sanjaya Malakar and the return of Peter Pan to the grocery shelves.
Journalism is not a popularity contest. Sometimes we tell stories people want to know. Sometimes we tell stories that people need to know-even if it is news they would rather turn away.
The one good idea I heard from the panel came from Terry Heaton from the consulting firm AR&D, who said TV stations should consider doing what Yahoo has done so successfully, amalgamating the best of the Web in your city. Heaton points out that there are hundreds of bloggers and content providers of all sorts in every town but there often is no single place to find everything going on.
Here is an example of such a collection although I have to hope that it could be more relevant and meaty.
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Honoring Noreen Welle
She was the heart and soul of the RTNDA Communicator Magazine -- and a leader in the organization. For those reasons, Noreen Welle was honored with the Rob Downey citation at this morning's business breakfast. The citation recognizes service to the board.
Through tears, outgoing Chair Angie Kucharski recalled how Noreen, who died in December, was a resource and "angel" who brought stability and humor to her team. Accepting the award, her husband, Tom, quoted a friend who remembered Noreen as "reverent and irreverent" -- she got the job done, but always kept a sense of humor and empathy. That empathy led her to be able to connect with people and "she always wanted you to be successful."
As a writer for Communicator, I knew Noreen's professional skill and personal warmth. Her joy in the success of others is what made her a true leader, and deserving of today's standing ovation.
Hope this report was up to your standards, Noreen. You made us better.
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