Category — Media

The writers strike is a real bummer, but I think it’s effect on television will be positive. I watched the California fires from my hotel room in Atlanta while I was at TelcoTV and CNN routinely relied on so-called iReporters (re people filming the fires with their personal video cameras) for footage and updates. User generated content from people fleeing the fires was vital to their coverage because no real news people could get close enough to cover the story.

So with so much user-generated content floating around that even Bob Dylan is on YouTube, I expect you’ll be seeing as much of it in prime time as the studio execs can get graphics wrapped around. Think “reality explosion” of the early 2000’s, except with lower production values. Is this a good thing? Sure, in the power-to-the-people sense. What does it do for art, creativity, and the human soul? No less than a lot of the other garbage on TV.
What is good is that there are many more methods of content entry. That translates to less restrictive means of getting content, e.g. what is cost-effective/profitable, and I suspect we’ll see a lot more real stories, viewpoints, and less content filtered by political views and other considerations. A desirable side effect is that a wider content provider base means more areas of knowledge can be covered, and in the end that means better TV.

So will TV execs scoop up user-generated content rather than relying on months of stockpiled scripts? Well, that’s a gamble they’ll have to make. Viewership will decline if they choose the latter, and so will ad revenue. If the execs have to keep paying actors even when they’re not producing, it makes for user-generated content to fill in the blanks.

Photo by Fred Prouser / Reuters

I’m not a huge Declan McCullagh fan, but I’m intrigued by his October 11, 2007 post, McCullagh’s Law: When politicians invoke the do-this-or-Americans-will-die argument. McCullagh states that “As the certainty that legislation violates the U.S. Constitution increases, so does the probability of predictions that severe harm or death will come to Americans if the proposal is not swiftly enacted.” He makes a convincing argument with several examples. I hope he’s around next week and not thrown into Camp X at Gitmo.

I’ve been reading Grady Booch for years now. I’m envious of his recent luck.

I admit that I didn’t know much about Ernesto “Che” Guevara before I watched The Motorcycle Diaries the other night. TMD is about the motorcycle trip up the spine of South America that Guevara took in 1951-2 with friend Alberto Granado.

This is the kind of movie I wanted to see about Guevara. TMD has all the buddy humor of a road movie, and the first half seems to lack direction, but the film eventually resolves to illustrate the evolution of Guevara’s political outlook. In a particular scene, Guevara speaks out for a group of itinerant mine workers who have lost land to work because they are members of the Communist Party. The scene is powerful and the rest of the movie suddenly comes into focus.
As much as I liked TMD, I felt there was room for a lot more. The movie was just over two hours, but the documentary theme warranted up to four. Gael García Bernal’s portrayal of Guevara is dramatic enough to provide depth without being melodramatic. Rodrigo de la Serna’s performance compliments Bernal perfectly.

Rating:

Labels: che, motorcycle diaries, movies, reviews

Bet you didn’t know…check out my friends Mur Lafferty and Jason Adams at Lulu TV in their new series This Day In Alternate History (link). More at Lulu TV.

Thomas Barnett’s talk outlining a post-Cold War solution for the foundering US military is both funny and insightful. +1

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Robert Reich’s Marketplace commentary from last week struck a chord for me.

“Supporters of this fundamental change in immigration policy say we need to import more well-educated talent if we’re to stay competitive. But exactly whose competitiveness are we talking about? Not the competitiveness of, say, American-born computer engineers. Adjusted for inflation, their earnings haven’t gone anywhere in years. ”

Read the commetary or listen here.

Of course, this is a letter; the worst kind of editorial. However, it’s worth noting that according to the National Center for Education Statistics (link), Arkansas consistently ranks below the national average in Science and Mathematics (link). It’s funny, but it’s not.

The news is all abuzz with questions about this ad:

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I StumbledUpon this collection of video clips.

Greatest Martial Arts Moments