When was the last time you wrote a post with this much text? It seems like while you were gone the need (to write) built and built until this happened.
That show is a very bad idea. Kaus is one squinty motherfucker.
As someone who listens to a lod of audio content on my iPod, let me state that there are three classes of spoken word material
* someone giving a speech
* someone being interviewed
* panel discussion
and each one down is 10x less valuable than the one above it.
A speech has someone focussed on getting some information to you. The information may itself be worthless (plenty of talks given at technical conferences are not very well disguised marketing shpiels), but that's pretty easy to detect, and even so, you may actually be interested in just how cool the next version of .NET or HP hardware or whatever is going to be.
An interview has, at least, the coherence of a single mind behind it. A good interviewer mostly shuts up, doesn't bring up weird tangents, and lets that single coherent mind come through. But the value of the interview depends on the interviewer not sucking and the interviewee being able to put together a useful and coherent story, on the fly, and based on an unanticipated stream of questions --- a tough skill to master.
A panel discussion has all the flaws of the interview, but now with more than one mind involved. Coherence goes out the window, various people start to get involved in one-upmanship, much more conversation crap (weird in-jokes of no interest to anyone else appear) and it's basically a big waste of time.
Now consider what you are discussing. We have all the pathologies of the panel discussion, plus the additional element that now no-one is actually interested in trying to inform the public; what they are interested in is creating conflict, pumping up the public's emotions and scoring points. Why would anyone with enough of a brain to operate a computer be interested in watching or listening to such crap? Especially when there's an entire universe of alternative material available?
Maybe I am way too optimistic here, but I would love to see the result of the podcasting revolution be that pundit shows designed to promote conflict, populated by people who feel compelled to have an opinion on anything under the sun no matter what their actual knowledge go the way of Amos n Andy and the silent movie.
>>I expect that if the format takes off, the stars will be home-grown people who have a talent for talking to a camera, rather than crossover bloggers, who really ought never be seen.
Do you mean all bloggers or specifically Wright and Kaus? Because, well, the way i see it lots of different kinds of people with different kinds of backgrounds end up doing well in front of cameras. I'd suggest that as in current TV punditry, a good share of them are drawn from either the existing base of print journalists or subject matter experts (ex-whitehouse staff, ex-military, ex-quarterback, etc.) So these are crossovers. We've all seen people on camera that we knew wouldn't last, that were so bad at articulating and interacting and communicating that they were just painful to watch. But even if they haven't got the talent or skill for that media, there was some reason they got their shot at TV, some expertise or ability. Successful bloggers have a valuable set of abilities that, in some, perhaps unpredictable ways could certainly translate into video, given the right combination of ability, talent, and perhaps skill on camera. Besides, all the bloggers I've met are hot, take BPhD for example. So I don't agree they should never be seen. Y'all are all hot aren't you?
And this reminds me, I still have half a mind to do audio interviews. Last time I suggested this, people were all, "But I can read so much faster than I can listen," and then I realized that of course people who read blogs are going to say that.
Without getting into the type of spoken word stuff, I completely agree. It's hard to pull off voice intonations in type.
ash
['It's hard to discuss wars without maps.']
Belle Waring and Paris Hilton in skimpy outfits on a desert island, along with Roger Federer and Tom Friedman. That show would have everything!
I like listening and talking much better than reading and typing. I follow blogs, because it's easier to find interesting conversations online, and when you don't feel like having a conversation, you're not obliged to show up--except if you're ogged and you host the salon, and then it's nice manners to say that you'll be on hiatus.
I've also been fed up with NPR for a while.
In fact, I think I learn best when it's reinforced by means oral, aural and visual. I wanted to try reading foreign literature whil listening to a native speaker readan unabridged text.
I like Chris Lydon's Open Source which is available as a podcast. He's a real radio guy--which means that they've got good production values--but he's definitely in to the internet and the blogosphere. He's got one foot in the old media and one in the new.
I suspect that if this takes off, it will be someone who is a crossover, who happens to be good-looking, articulate, and witty on camera. A well-known blogger probably already has a fan base, which might also watch TV, seems like a safer bet than a new face.
(But I'm puzzled by the home-grown comment. Home-grown as by bloggingtv, or as in blogging newbie without a fan base?)
Cala--I think he means by home-grown someone whose fan base grew from the blogosphere. My man Lydon was a radio guy who did some blogging when he was out of a radio job and now incorporates blogs into his PRI show.
I'm getting flashes of Kaus in a bikini with Tom Friedman now. This thread makes pain.
Good pundits do not necessarily make good television (see Krugman, for instance), any more than good writers make good television. There's a world of difference between the ability to come up with good, cogent, reasonable arguments and present them in a clear and convincing manner, and the ability to be charismatic on camera. There's no real reason to believe that internet pundits, regardless of their online personae, would translate any better across TV than the average New York Times columnist.
Given what makes good television, of course, I'm fairly wary of which bloggers would actually succeed on screen. Hardball, for example, is an absolute abomination in terms of everything good journalism and punditry is meant to accomplish, but it's great television. Back when I had MSNBC I could never turn my eyes away from those hideous motherfuckers.
Toads, Hardball is not great television.
If Wright were supposed to be a robot, we'd say it was an unsubtle portrayal.
I'm awarding five points for this sentence.
lots of different kinds of people with different kinds of backgrounds end up doing well in front of cameras
And
There's no real reason to believe that internet pundits, regardless of their online personae, would translate any better across TV than the average New York Times columnist.
Can both these be true, because they both sound right. Most bloggers aren't going to come across well in video, but there's no reason that there can't be some hidden stars among them. So forget the "homegrown" stuff.
You know that TV pundits take talking head classes, right? How are bloggers supposed to afford the tuition?
Armsmasher's 14 is a good point. And I think both points you quote in 13 are true, ogged, and that neither contradict each other.
Toads, Hardball is not great television.
There's a world of difference between quality television and good television, which was the point I was trying to make. Hardball, I would argue, is about as nakedly entertaining in its raw, pornographic ugliness as any cable shout show out there.
You cannot use smoke signals to do philosophy. Its form excludes the content.
What I don't get is why bloggers, so many of whom have experience in front of a classroom, don't (or wouldn't) be able to broadcast a certain kind of charisma on television. I realize, of course, that the tricks of seeming interesting on tv are different than the tricks of seeming interesting in a lecture hall, but at least you'd think that folks with teaching experience wouldn't get that deer-in-the-headlights look about public speaking.
Yeah, but you'd think that about speaking in front of an audience in general, too, and plenty of politicians who can handle a crowd pretty well look miserable on TV.
One possibliity is that, when you're speaking in front of a classroom, it's important to go around and make eye contact with lots of different people, but as I understand it on TV you have to look right at the camera no matter who you're talking to.
Right. My guess is that without a lot of practice, it's hard to address the camera in the same animated way you'd do a person. Experiment: next time someone calls you on the phone, pretend your powered-off television is your interlocutor, and make earnest, engaged facial expressions at it. If anyone asks, you are doing it for science.
TV, particularly talking head TV, is just a difficult format. In life, or even in a wider shot, you have room for more expansive gestures and facial expressions, but that stuff makes you look like a spastic or freak when the camera only sees the upper third of your body. And all your little ticks are magnified: you probably wouldn't even notice Yglesias scratching his beard in real life, but when he does it on TV, it's totally distracting. So you have to communicate using mainly your voice, and keep the rest of yourself still--but, unlike radio, where languorous voices can be great, TV requires a faster (but not too fast!) pace, and more focus.
On the other hand, on TV, Yglesias's spelling mistakes are much less obvious.
"What I don't get is why bloggers, so many of whom have experience in front of a classroom...."
Touch of selection bias here, perhaps.
you have to communicate using mainly your voice
See, that's what I mean. You'd think people who speak in front of audiences for a living would be able to modulate their voices. Although the points about the difference between a camera and a live audience are definitely true.
Gary, point taken.
Although, come to think of it, I did a radio interview earlier today about online dating and I'm hoping to god they'll edit what I said so that my natural speech patterns, which involve a great deal of backtracking, pausing, saying "like" and "um," and talking over myself, will be cut to a minimum and it'll sound like I actually speak in complete sentences.
But not sentences like the one directly above. Which come to think of it is a fair bit like how I talk, at least in the rambling on sort of sense.
The most humiliating experience I've had in the law is taking depositions and having to look at the transcript of how I talk. It's dreadful.
Actually, it's totally normal. Another reason being a talking head is difficult.
Maybe I do want to marry Michael Beschloss. So?
I don't watch TV news much. When I do, I find myself inventorying all the stereotyped expressions the talking heads have: raised eyebrows, nods, head shakes, cocked heads, frowny-faces, etc. It looks massively silly and fake to me; often the newscaster seems to just throw in a nod for no reason except that the end of the sentence is too far off to wait for.
Lou Dobbs especially annoys me, with his constant look of fake seriousness.
I don't watch TV news much. When I do, I find myself inventorying all the stereotyped expressions the talking heads have: raised eyebrows, nods, head shakes, cocked heads, frowny-faces, etc. It looks massively silly and fake to me; often the newscaster seems to just throw in a nod for no reason except that the end of the sentence is too far off to wait for.
Lou Dobbs especially annoys me, with his constant look of fake seriousness.
Maybe I do want to marry Michael Beschloss. So?
Good news: He digs Iranians.
Bad news: Afsaneh Mashayekhi Beschloss.
One good habit you can get into is to try just inserting silence instead of verbal fillers. In a panel format, or even an interview format, though, those silences can sometimes be taken as invitations for the other guys to talk if you take too long.
It's actually pretty hard to edit out fillers and backtracking, though. You might not think it, but a lot of speech is very, very continuous. There are very few actual pauses in speech. And, when editing audio, it's very difficult to cut stuff unless both ends of the cut are on silence. (Of course, I'm sure the pros do it much better than I do, but still.)
I actually think I would do pretty well on TV, if I weren't so goddamn pale. And thin. I look terrible in a suit.
What, do you don't read the Wikipedia entries of your prospective amours?
w-lfs-n agreed, and paid King $48,000.
Hmm.
Yet another thing I'm doing wrong when it comes to coupling.
A face made for radio, but a voice made for blogging.
Forget potentially too expensive professional trainers. This kind of thing could work with a little luck, the right people and, a little or a lot of practice before going live.