Talking ‘With’ Rather Than ‘At’ Each Other on the Campaign Trail

This e-magazine had its busiest day ever last week by mentioning one man’s name – MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. I happen to like the guy and his work even if he periodically goes off the emotional deep end. Keith is mostly honest, open and brutal and you rarely see that in today’s media. You can usually get one or two attributes: open and brutal or… honest and open but rarely the trifecta. Love him or hate him, you know where he stands on every issue.

My objection to ‘news’ coverage is when the idea of “balance” means to patently buy what someone says without ever digging to find a kernel of truth. Most ‘news’ stories are ripped off a wire then have a premise, three quotes and an end paragraph added. 600-words a 6th grader could write; get a quote from both sides and an “expert” (to add legitimacy). Wrap a bow around it, hit ‘send’ to your sub-editor and he/she will then cut it to fit the ‘way cool’ graphic someone created without ever worrying about the context of what is cut from the story or if it makes sense and then on to the next story.

It is a creativity free and opinion-less environment, unless expressly labelled as such, and even then the ever present fear of lawsuit is such that everything is usually stated in such a milquetoast and non-offensive way that by the time you get to the end, you question if the writer was for or against the premise? So you end up with back-slapping, cynical double entendres that leave you staring at the screen wondering if you missed an inside joke? This is especially true in movie reviews where the writer is so impressed with his/her language skills that the central question asked at the end is always, “yeah, but did you like it?” The media are told to offer both sides but rarely does a reporter today do their job, break a sweat, ask deeper questions or wonder where an answer falls on the ‘that’s just bulls**t-meter.’

Not Keith.

He brings something missing from television news – penetrating raw emotion and while it scares the bejeebers out of NBC hall monitor anchors Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams, he and the network have breathed life into a news franchise that was in a near terminal state of decline. In the ‘good old days,’ reporters competed mightily for 2-3 minutes of the 22-minute network national newscast. This was how they were discovered and moved up the totem poll. By combining their cable and network teams, we benefit from hearing top news talent several times each day and in much more depth.

Appointment telly no longer works in either the US or the UK. Few stop their busy day to be home at 6:30 pm to sit and watch Nightly News or the BBC News at 6:00. They may get it later from TiVo or our Sky+ but many now download podcasts on the BBC iPlayer or MSNBC.com or watch directly from websites and feedreaders. News comes when I want it, not the other way around. NBC understands this and fills the hours with diverse programming whose stories I load into the playlist and catch up with whilst creating The Vadimus Post magazine. This is the true meaning of Web convergence.

There are still a few bugs in the system. For example, I am so incensed with the advert stream that I will never use Fidelity, Scott-trade, Fabreze, Venus or any flogged to death product on their player (especially Samsung’s new slim phone that aired non-stop for hours one day). The Internet is a different medium than telly and since Tivo and Sky+ give me the ability to determine what adverts I will watch or FF through, the MSNBC site needs to do similar. When you force me to watch without being able to opt-out, I will do something else, including go to YouTube or Red Lasso if forced to mute your player when the adverts come on. When my playlist has 30 clips, it’s annoying, so they need to fix that.

CBS on the other hand behaves like the Tiffany broadcaster it used to be, the only problem is they have nothing left to bring to the dance. Above it all, they come to us ‘darling’ and expect us to be there for them… Their 61-year aged average audience will indeed come, but they’re losing the battle as well as the plot. ABC and FOX never let you see enough of an entire broadcast online to even get the plot and that’s just dumb. Only NBC and CNN have a clue. Tech savvy folk of every age are using this technology. Even The Daily Show and Colber(t) Repor(t) (sadly, Stephen is not broadcast as yet in the UK) show entire episodes online.

Being new to this e-thing having written freelance business articles for 15-years as an avocation, I’ve spent the last 28-years as an entrepreneur and businessman. In business you listen to and interact with your customers or die. News has always been a 1-way street. What Keith and others need to do is migrate from, “hey, I have something to say so listen up,” to engaging in a real, honest dialogue. Imagine if Rich, Dowd and Krugman at The New York Times posted a few replies each day to comments thanking viewers for their point of view and engaging the well-thought and presented comments in spirited dialogue. Yes, that does take time and when media is a two-way street listening to its audience, it becomes a much better experience for both parties.

Blogging has limits. It’s one-dimensional, the archive’s too boring and a viewer has to read an entire story before getting to the next one. On my 1st blog viewers voted with their feet bouncing out 80-90% of the time saying in essence, “the hell I will!” If my lead did not interest, they were gone. Newsies love variety so it was clear that The Vadimus Post needed to present content so there is choice for all. Like the Internet moving to wider and faster pipelines in the late 90s to handle content, in the latter half of this decade you decide what you want to see and when. It’s really that simple.

And then there is the anonymous posting wall of one’s desktop. What’s striking is the tone of posters who react to an article. The Internet is home to an invisible legion of people who seem patently unable to disagree without becoming personally disagreeable. The theory is, since I’m sitting here looking at my screen, I am no longer personally accountable for my behaviour so I can say things to another online I would never dare say to their faces. It’s as if every bully one has ever confronted in life is manifested in the confrontational posts reduced to an almost childish and churlish “oh yeah?!” Some comments are quite funny, not for content but the seeming lack of sensory acuity, the ability to see the impact of words typed on others both producing and reading the comment… tunnel vision x10.

So we head into the last 115 days of the campaign. It’s a brave new polarized world. Thanks Keith for your help in bringing left and right together and at each other’s throats through sheer outrageousness. Enjoy your vacation you;ve got some work to do in the coming weeks.