Joe Russin

Joe Russin is a former assistant managing editor of the LA Times and former executive planning editor at KTLA Channel 5. His take on the Lear Center's study of LA local news is below. And below that, a reaction.

This latest study of local TV news, containing an exhaustive codification of thousands of news stories, reaches a familiar conclusion: there ain't much real news on the local TV news. But we already knew that. And there are other issues which limit the usefulness of this survey.

For one thing, the study may actually overstate the problem. Although news programs were coded around the clock, the results were squeezed into a theoretical "typical" half hour news show. Anyone in the business (and actually any frequent viewer), knows there is a difference between an 11 pm half hour news, an hour at 10 pm, an hour at 6 pm and the multi hour blocks of morning news. Show lengths and different audiences make for varying story lengths and different story selections. So while in aggregate there is meager coverage of areas deemed important in the study, coverage on some broadcasts may be richer. If the study's half hour is typical of anything, it is probably an 11pm late news, which everyone knows is basically a headline service--and for most viewers, a chance to catch up on late scores and tomorrow's weather.

But a greater problem is this: the story counting approach does not tell you much about story quality. And here the picture may be bleaker than the study suggests. Government stories are hard to cover in an appealing visual way, which is why government is so often ignored unless it offers a juicy scandal. And what is covered, more and more, are press conferences at which only cameramen are present. The speaker says what he wishes, often free of scrutiny from reporters (unless the paper sends someone.) The video and a press release are then dumped on a writer, who may or may not know anything about the subject. But prior knowledge, actually, is of little matter--possibly even a burden--because the writer's job is to quickly write and edit a :30 to :40 second story, including a short sound bite, and then get on to the next story.

Scott McGibbon

Scott McGibbon is Project Specialist at the Norman Lear Center.

He's popped up on SNL, is a frequent foil for Jon Stewart on The Daily Show and now he's slow-jamming the news with Jimmy Fallon. The line between news and entertainment is already as fuzzy as the foamy design on a whole milk latte. Does NBC's Brian Williams really need to stick his finger in and stir? Does he feel he's not getting enough face time? How soon before he sips from a big cup of Coke on his desk during every NBC Nightly News broadcast or does his own "I'm F**king Matt Damon" video? And the next time he reports on some ghastly tragedy or appalling political story, will we care or just wonder how funny it might be if he and Jimmy could slow-jam this one.

Chris Dzialo

Chris Dzialo is the Transmedia Outreach Specialist for Hollywood, Health and Society. He is also a PhD candidate in Film & Media Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

A major component of my job here at Hollywood, Health & Society entails watching webisodes that might benefit from our outreach services. It's a tough gig, but someone's got to do it.

Along the way I've come to a few conclusions of my own about the future of online television. While I'm thrilled by the nascent webisode industry's modest success in finding a profitable business model (such as streaming brief commercials before a webisode airs), I do not believe that the same strategy will work for network and cable television online. This is because television, in general, costs much more to produce and its arguably greater profit potential is not realized with the same tactics that work for less expensive webisodes. Yet, to read the trades, online video would seem to be a gleaming, forbidden idol whose power the television networks would desperately like to harness for themselves--except that to touch the idol is to be destroyed by it.

How, in 2010, are shows like The Colbert Report and The Daily Show being pulled off Hulu? It's bad enough that the floating skateboards and holographic sharks promised in Back to the Future II are still in development. But it's downright baffling that we haven't yet figured out how to make money from television (something which, you know, makes money) by showing it on the Internet (something which, you know, makes money). This is equivalent to Matt Groening's astute observation that "the French are funny, sex is funny, and comedies are funny, yet no French sex comedies are funny."

My contention is that the networks and Internet gurus are simply trying too hard. In other words, like Gerard Depardieu, they're getting too fancy for their own good.

Johanna Blakley

When it turns out that the guy sitting behind you at an event is an astronaut who just came back from outer space you get kind of pumped about the event.

The gal beside me was a social worker who counsels soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. The fellow in front of me, I eventually found out, is in charge of a half-billion dollar technology budget. Sitting next to him was the founder of Xerox PARC.

Such is the crew that attends TED events. This one was a special USC spin-off called TEDx, which attracted 1200 hungry minds, eager to gobble up musical performances, experimental films and the musings of a neuroscientist, an adventurer, a robot designer and the inventor of the Na'vi language in Avatar.

Oh yes, and my talk about innovation and creativity in the fashion industry, which is based on the Lear Center's Ready to Share project. One of the best things about speaking at TEDx was feeling the energy of a radically diverse crowd that is clearly convinced that smart doesn't have to mean boring. That audience was poised to vacuum up as much information as their brains could hold (a lot of #TEDxUSC tweets said stuff like "brain now blown"), and they seemed to think that this was a whole lot of fun. Extreme sports for the mind.

Now who would have thought that the first TEDx event, held at USC last spring, would turn into 500 unique global events in 70 countries in 35 languages? Fifty thousand people attended a TEDx event over the last year and they expect 100,000 more this year. The well-funded versions, like the ones at USC, feature live performances and a series of speakers who are asked to give the "talk of their lives" in 18 minutes or less. The scrappier TEDx's often feature a selection of videos from TED.com's impressive online archive (sometimes they're projected on hanging sheets). Discussion ensues . . . and the hope is that good ideas will spread.

You can't help but wonder, what is it about the TED format that has captured a global audience? Why are people around the world so excited about listening to a bunch of passionate geeks?

Adam Rogers

Adam Rogers is Office Manager/Project Coordinator at the Norman Lear Center.

Social media is demolishing the layers of barriers between the fans and the famous.

In my parents' generation, if you wanted to contact your favorite celebrity, you joined the fan club, paid the dues and maybe got an autographed picture in the mail months later. When I was a teenager, in the late '90s, I was a huge fan of MTV personality Dave Holmes, so I wrote him a letter and sent it to MTV Networks. No response. I tried emailing it to the general MTV email address - only to receive a canned response. Today, I am "friends" with Dave on Facebook and Twitter. Our symbiotic relationship allows him to keep me and other fans abreast of everything he is up to while making me feel as though I have a backstage pass.