Yes, please stop imitating bad TV news
Roanoke.com is quitting its TimesCast, a daily online video program (some people call these “Webcasts”). While I have never been a big fan of the TimesCast, I did admire the effort the talented folks up there in Virginia lavished on it. I’m hoping that we’ll see some cool new stuff from them, now that all those resources have been freed up.
A year ago, they were averaging only about 500 pageviews per weekday. I think I’ve heard that the numbers stayed about the same, but I can’t find backup for that, so I may be wrong.
Having started the TimesCast two years ago, Roanoke was very cutting-edge. Maybe this move is a (good) sign of things to come — maybe a lot of other news organizations will realize that the television people have already failed at this, and there’s no earthly reason for newspapers to make the same mistakes. Leapfrog over things that do not work well! Try something new instead!
(Link via Journerdism.)
[...] are glad it’s going. Mindy McAdams will miss the innovation but not its bad imitation of TV. Maybe this move is a (good) sign of things to come — maybe a lot of other news organizations [...]
October 11, 2007 at 12:20 pmJust because TV failed it doesn’t make it a less valid product for people to experiment with.
In the same way that we shouldn’t copy from TV we shouldn’t let the mistakes of one medium dictate the experimentation in another.
But you are right when in your hope that other news organizations will move on as well. We are sometimes in as much danger of copying ourselves as we are other mediums.
October 11, 2007 at 12:25 pmI have seen some wonderful TV packages, from stations such as KARE-TV in Minneapolis. But I have rarely seen reporters (or anchors) talking at me in a way that made me want to stay tuned. I grit my teeth and wait for the banter to end and the reporting to start. If the banter and summaries and updates take too long, I have to switch it off.
Peter Jennings was the one I could tolerate the most, but then, he usually seemed to be communicating — not just reading with EM-pha-sis in the right PLACE.
October 11, 2007 at 5:40 pm‘TimesCast’ Webcast to end on roanoke.com…
This entry discusses the end of The Roanoke Times/roanoke.com TimesCast. I write about my involvement at it’s inception, how it evolved to its current state, and why it might have failed….
October 12, 2007 at 12:37 pmNice post, Patrick. The links were very helpful.
October 12, 2007 at 3:37 pm[...] Teaching Online Journalism » Yes, please stop imitating bad TV news Video reports getting a little more popular, but still a long way to go, says Mindy McAdams. (tags: mindy-mcadams video reporting journalism timescast) Tags: Topics: Links | Comments RSS [...]
October 12, 2007 at 10:22 pm[...] Mindy McAdams wasn’t a fan either. She does, however, give a nod to Roanoke.com for it’s cutting-edge idea, and says: “Maybe this move is a (good) sign of things to come — maybe a lot of other news organizations will realize that the television people have already failed at this, and there’s no earthly reason for newspapers to make the same mistakes.” [...]
October 13, 2007 at 9:12 amHi Mindy!
We’re also experimenting with a newscast, but with a different spin.
We see a huge drop-off in site traffic on the weekends, which is a shame because the newspaper is in the habit of saving their biggest and best stories for the weekend.
Our new approach is a two minute newscast posted online on Monday mornings that gives you everything you missed over the weekend. Our intern Jimmy highlights breaking news from the weekend as well as any special packages or online features that you may not have seen if you didn’t read the paper or chaeck the site over the weekend.
Traffic on the videos isn’t huge yet, but we’re giving it some time to take hold.
10/15 - http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2007/oct/15/video-heres-what-you-missed-weekend/
9/24 - http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2007/sep/24/video-heres-what-you-missed-weekend/
October 15, 2007 at 3:15 pmI like that idea — news you missed over the weekend! With links, what a great idea! Do you feature it on the printed front page? (Should.) I like the box on the home page.
And … How about a better URL?
Like ZeFrank’s vlogs — you could always go to one page (zefrank.com/theshow/)and see the latest one, no worries.
The “2 minutes” from the 15th seems to be … um, 2 min. 59 sec. (hee hee). Liars.
(Jimmy is muy cute.)
October 15, 2007 at 5:10 pmYes, we have a spot on A1 on Monday mornings with Jimmy’s smiling mug and a teaser to the Web. We also have it prominently teased on the home page on Mondays.
A better URL would be nice. I’ll have to monkey with our video player a bit to get all his videos in one spot.
And yes, the time is off on that last one. He swears if you take off the intro and outro it’s two minutes.
We used to have a timer on there counting down. Maybe it’s time to reinstate it?
October 19, 2007 at 2:49 pm