One of those side things we wouldn’t usually bother you with ’cause it’s off-topic, but several people just sent e-mail and other messages so what the heck: The New York Times website has posted tomorrow’s Page 1 story about the massive delay in tonight’s Olympics-opener broadcast. Your editor here, identified as “a blogger in Seattle,” is quoted. Just because it’s an anecdote about the new world of new media, we thought we’d note how that happened, jumped off the home page so you can scroll by if you don’t care:
I’m not that hardcore of an Olympics fan, but the Opening Ceremony is an only-every-four-years spectacle not to be missed – particularly the parade of nations, which is a quadrennial reminder that the world goes beyond the handful of “Major” Countries we routinely hear about. (Burkina Faso! San Marino! Guinea-Bissau! The entire list of 204 countries, in today’s parade order, can be found on this page.)
So once we ascertained that today’s Beijing ceremony would be live on CBC via cable starting at 5 am, Junior Member of the Team and I hatched a plan to get up early. This is also notable because usually that’s closer to when we two night owls turn in for the “night” (Patrick the Co-Publisher/Sales Guy is on WSB early patrol most days while I keep the late-night watch).
5 am arrived under steel-wool skies. The alarm squawked, we staggered into the living room, and turned on channel 99. Four hours of must-see TV ensued. We were riveted, though we seldom sit still for more than a few minutes of non-computer screentime. Somewhere along the way, of course, we turned on our laptops.
In addition to monitoring multiple e-mail accounts, I also stay connected to Twitter, usually via its website though we also have mobile-phone access. I’ve mentioned it here before – and we keep a box in the WSB sidebar, displaying our latest Twitter post – but if you’re still not familiar with it, it’s a service that enables you to send and receive short messages (140 characters max), with the hook that you only see messages from people you “follow.” The number of people you can “follow” is unlimited; you just need to find their Twitter username and click “follow” (ours is westseattleblog) — and the only people who consistently see yours, unless you use a display like the one in our sidebar, are the people who “follow” you.
Along with monitoring West Seattle news, I’m kind of a wonk for media philosophy (maybe 30ish years of media work is to blame), so the other day, I started “following” the Twitter feed of Brian Stelter, a TV reporter for the New York Times who came to fame for a blog he started about the TV business (though he at the time was a college student who had never worked in that business) and joined the NYT a year ago. This morning, he “tweeted” (shorthand for “sent a Twitter message”) wondering if anyone had anything to say about the fact that even in this Digital Day and Age, NBC was still not going to show the Opening Ceremony until prime time, a full half-day after it happened.
I “tweeted” to him that my 12-year-old son and I had gotten up early to watch it on CBC and that I found the tape delay repulsive. (No room to elaborate on this in a 140-character-max message but since I’ve got all the room I want here — I think the prime-time broadcast is fine, but don’t let that stop you from ALSO showing it live. Most people would likely still choose to watch it in the evening, but for those who want to live/watch in “the now,” offer the option.)
I suspected Stelter might use it as a quote since he “tweeted” back to ask my name (on Twitter, we are westseattleblog, without accompanying names, since our “tweets” usually involve WSB-related news or asides).
Forgot to check the New York Times site until an hour ago when about half a dozen e-mails and, of course, Twitter messages came in from people saying “hey, you were quoted in the NYT.”
Here’s the story (my quote is in the 7th paragraph from the end). Reading the entire article, I’m reminded how lucky we are in this case to have CBC access via cable here in Seattle for occasions like this – Stelter’s story talks about people in other parts of the country who had to resort to seeking out unauthorized online feeds and clips to see the Opening Ceremony live, or close to live.
In a world where we have the technology to share events and information live, trying to restrict viewing/reading via artificial delays, in any medium, makes no sense. If you want to enhance, contextualize, incorporate reaction into a delayed presentation, go ahead and offer that TOO, but don’t make it the ONLY way you present the event/information. Here at WSB, we try to live up to “share it as it happens” by offering not only hypertimely reporting in general, but also in-progress “liveblogging” when there’s breaking news like the Alki duplex fire (or major meetings with big announcements, like the Sealth/Denny vote and the Viaduct-replacement options, as well as big community events like Night Out earlier this week).
One more aside: If you’re interested in the topic of “neighborhood blogging,” as practiced here on WSB and a growing number of other sites, CityClub Seattle is presenting a panel discussion next month at the downtown library and kindly invited us to be part of it. It’s open to the public, $5 admission (participants aren’t paid; CityClub is nonprofit and supports its operations with nominal ticket fees). Tickets are available online.
—-Tracy
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