All Blog Posts from Public Eye

Andrew Tyndall argues that there "is a subtle, but significant shift, in the networks' news agenda as they make the transition from pure television broadcasters to multi-platform providers of video news."

Networks, he notes, often don't put news packages about sports and show business online. The reason? Potential copyrights issues. Since the rights to show, say, an a baseball game on television don't automatically transfer to the Internet, sports stories are often withheld from network Web sites for legal reasons.

Tyndall suggests that this means there will be fewer sports and showbiz stories as the news continues to shift online. I'm skeptical of that argument: It seems more likely that news outlets (and their lawyers) will simply learn how to better negotiate the still-murky waters of Internet copyright. Sports and showbiz are just too popular for news networks to abandon simply because they haven't bothered to craft agreements that allow usage across different platforms.

Lost Remote's Steve Safran argues that networks may, at the moment, be being overly cautious, and suggests that "fair use" rules could apply when it comes to putting this sort of content on the Web. But Safran acknowledges that the networks' reticence to do so is understandable, since sports organizations are notoriously strict when it comes to their copyrights. (Remember the evil college baseball blogger?)

Read full post…

Each week we invite someone from outside PE to weigh in with their thoughts about CBS News and the media at large. This week we turned to Steve Safran, the Managing Editor of Lost Remote, a must-read Web site dedicated to "reporting on and advancing the state of convergence in news and related media." Steve is Director of Digital Media at New England Cable News, a 24-hour regional news channel based in the Boston area, and oversees the station’s online, VOD, cellphone and other emergent digital news products. He is also on the station’s morning newscast, with “Reports from the WebCenter.” As always, the opinions expressed in “Outside Voices” are those of the author, not ours, and we seek a wide variety of voices. Now, here's Steve:



It might be breaking the unspoken critics’ code of “never praise unless there’s a junket involved,” but I really like the moves CBS News is making these days. At Lost Remote, we have been talking for years now about opening the news process, inviting viewers and users into the “conversation” of news and providing information on our terms, not on the network’s.



All of a sudden, it’s happening. And at CBS News.



I wouldn’t have predicted CBS News would take the lead in this space, but frankly – it has. I visited the studio – and it is a studio – at CBSNews.com recently and I gotta say – impressive. Web news sites have long been relegated to the ol’ storage closet on the third floor. But CBS has figured out that the Web site staff shouldn’t find out about news from the TV newscast. The Web room has all the feel of a traditional TV newsroom. If you were to walk into there, I guarantee you wouldn’t guess “Web production” first.



The CBSNews.com site is an impressive step forward for Web news. The video is prominent (although I would make it even more so) and the selections of both original and repurposed news stories are deep. Lost Remote readers this month voted The CBS O/O stations’ new sites as the best in local news. Trickle-down, at last.



Still, I’d have to turn in my Cynical Critic’s credentials if I didn’t point out a few areas that could use improvement. (At Lost Remote, we’re noted for giving free advice that’s totally worth it.)

Read full post…