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In some ways it seems light-hearted to refer to television news as a traditional medium alongside newspapers. There is still a good percentage of the population alive today who remembers the pre-television era, whereas The Times of London has been around since 1785. But the presentation of news on television has been so arresting and vivid over roughly sixty years that it deserves its place along with the newspaper. There were many brilliant, words written about the assassination of President John Kennedy; words both poetic and rippingly conspiratorial. Yet hearing the phrase ‘Kennedy assassination’ first fills the mind with the Zapruder film, not William Manchester or Jim Garrison.
Yet, it is television that evidently feels more threatened by new media, likely because they are similar as closely-matched cousins. Except one cousin has more toys than the other. Both television and the internet combine visual and audio outputs - the internet does print better. Television has had the call-in Larry King type show since the first microphone was tap tap tapped. But on the internet, your droning thoughts are not cut off by a screening producer. Everybody gets on the air as it were. Even in terms of visuals, the internet allows the user to change angles, views or commentary with a click. Television is lurching along at this - naturally through sports first, by following your favourite driver in a NASCAR race - but still has a long way to go.
When it comes time to discuss the newspaper industry and its survival, bear the above points about the internet in mind. I think we should deal with one medium at a time, to avoid clouding the issue and also because the newspaper industry will have to react to television’s changes, not the other way around.
Why is this? This is crucial for it sets up the remainder of my argument and recommendations. The lower technology always adapts to the higher technology, not the reverse. Live theatre by the time of England during the Victorian Era had become a place of spectacle, literally with pitched naval battles raging across flooded London stages. Along came the movies. Oddly enough, the two-dimensional, black and white movie screen did pitched naval battles better than the full colour live attraction; mostly because the stage was using little boats of the scale of Shetland Ponies, whereas the toy props the movie studio used looked like the full-size Intrepid or Bounty. Hence theatre dropped spectacle except in musical form and went for drawing room comedies and kitchen sink dramas. Things that fit the physical space of the stage and allowed the audience to feel as though it was ‘there’.
(Parenthetically - hence the parentheses - my favourite line in the movies comes from Richard Rush’s The Stunt Man. Peter O’Toole plays a half-mad movie director based by rumour on David Lean. He states that King Kong was only three foot six yet appeared to be a giant ape. O’Toole summarized before loping off, “If God could do the tricks we can do, He’d be a happy man.”)
I alluded to radio drama in the previous installment of this series. It thrived and was brilliant and achieved mind-cracking absurdity in comedy everywhere from Jack Benny’s imagined vault to The Goons and the sound of a sock filled with pudding thrown at a brick wall. (That was actually one of Spike Milligan’s script directions. He wanted precisely that sound.) But television had faces. Jackie Gleason’s eyes could widen, Perry Mason could raise an eyebrow, Mr. Spock could raise one hell of an eyebrow, and even pudding-filled socks could not compete. Granted, there is still comedy on radio (as in every drive-time show in existence), and some drama if you hunt it out - but as market share declined radio had to get out of the business. It retained its advantage in music, as music sounded better on radio.
So as a general working principle, television has to look at its competitor and plan like a football coach. What does the other side do absolutely better than we do? We don’t do that. What do we do absolutely better than they do? We concentrate on doing that.
The internet is much better, significantly stronger, than either television or newspapers on several counts. Television used to win on immediacy, but as Einstein taught us, time is relative. Having a crew on the scene in minutes is not immediate. A passer-by with a cell phone camera and a send button is immediate.
A second advantage is range. Any topic any where any time. For instance, if one is suddenly curious about the news from Luxembourg, can quickly find out that the country is cooperating in tracing Kim Jong-Il’s slush fund. Television is limited in its range by time; newspapers by space. Banking authorities in Luxembourg have to fight their way in (one imagines umbrellas housing sub-machine guns or lasers).
Finally, there is the advantage mentioned earlier - the consumer can have equal voice to the producer. Indeed, through posting or blogging, the consumer can be the producer. A Letter to the Editor seems positively quaint in comparison, perhaps because it is quaint in comparison. If the art of news is conversational - the premise we began with - with the internet the user can change the topic and/or deliver a monologue or editorial any time he or she wants.
(I had originally expected to have finished this series off in three columns, but I am mindful that reading for very long on a screen is tiring. So we will deliver the Grand Unified Theory ... next time. In the meantime why not find a good book to read? Please share on Twitter or Facebook and I love to read your comments. Be seeing you - H)
Yet, it is television that evidently feels more threatened by new media, likely because they are similar as closely-matched cousins. Except one cousin has more toys than the other. Both television and the internet combine visual and audio outputs - the internet does print better. Television has had the call-in Larry King type show since the first microphone was tap tap tapped. But on the internet, your droning thoughts are not cut off by a screening producer. Everybody gets on the air as it were. Even in terms of visuals, the internet allows the user to change angles, views or commentary with a click. Television is lurching along at this - naturally through sports first, by following your favourite driver in a NASCAR race - but still has a long way to go.
When it comes time to discuss the newspaper industry and its survival, bear the above points about the internet in mind. I think we should deal with one medium at a time, to avoid clouding the issue and also because the newspaper industry will have to react to television’s changes, not the other way around.
Why is this? This is crucial for it sets up the remainder of my argument and recommendations. The lower technology always adapts to the higher technology, not the reverse. Live theatre by the time of England during the Victorian Era had become a place of spectacle, literally with pitched naval battles raging across flooded London stages. Along came the movies. Oddly enough, the two-dimensional, black and white movie screen did pitched naval battles better than the full colour live attraction; mostly because the stage was using little boats of the scale of Shetland Ponies, whereas the toy props the movie studio used looked like the full-size Intrepid or Bounty. Hence theatre dropped spectacle except in musical form and went for drawing room comedies and kitchen sink dramas. Things that fit the physical space of the stage and allowed the audience to feel as though it was ‘there’.
(Parenthetically - hence the parentheses - my favourite line in the movies comes from Richard Rush’s The Stunt Man. Peter O’Toole plays a half-mad movie director based by rumour on David Lean. He states that King Kong was only three foot six yet appeared to be a giant ape. O’Toole summarized before loping off, “If God could do the tricks we can do, He’d be a happy man.”)
I alluded to radio drama in the previous installment of this series. It thrived and was brilliant and achieved mind-cracking absurdity in comedy everywhere from Jack Benny’s imagined vault to The Goons and the sound of a sock filled with pudding thrown at a brick wall. (That was actually one of Spike Milligan’s script directions. He wanted precisely that sound.) But television had faces. Jackie Gleason’s eyes could widen, Perry Mason could raise an eyebrow, Mr. Spock could raise one hell of an eyebrow, and even pudding-filled socks could not compete. Granted, there is still comedy on radio (as in every drive-time show in existence), and some drama if you hunt it out - but as market share declined radio had to get out of the business. It retained its advantage in music, as music sounded better on radio.
So as a general working principle, television has to look at its competitor and plan like a football coach. What does the other side do absolutely better than we do? We don’t do that. What do we do absolutely better than they do? We concentrate on doing that.
The internet is much better, significantly stronger, than either television or newspapers on several counts. Television used to win on immediacy, but as Einstein taught us, time is relative. Having a crew on the scene in minutes is not immediate. A passer-by with a cell phone camera and a send button is immediate.
A second advantage is range. Any topic any where any time. For instance, if one is suddenly curious about the news from Luxembourg, can quickly find out that the country is cooperating in tracing Kim Jong-Il’s slush fund. Television is limited in its range by time; newspapers by space. Banking authorities in Luxembourg have to fight their way in (one imagines umbrellas housing sub-machine guns or lasers).
Finally, there is the advantage mentioned earlier - the consumer can have equal voice to the producer. Indeed, through posting or blogging, the consumer can be the producer. A Letter to the Editor seems positively quaint in comparison, perhaps because it is quaint in comparison. If the art of news is conversational - the premise we began with - with the internet the user can change the topic and/or deliver a monologue or editorial any time he or she wants.
- TO BE CONTINUED -
(I had originally expected to have finished this series off in three columns, but I am mindful that reading for very long on a screen is tiring. So we will deliver the Grand Unified Theory ... next time. In the meantime why not find a good book to read? Please share on Twitter or Facebook and I love to read your comments. Be seeing you - H)
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