Dec
27
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Saturday, 27 December 2008 |
This is a first for me, the 'hear-say' quote. Actually the 'hear-say' quote is common, it is just the first time I have been part of it in a major publication.
In today's Wall Street Journal , Paul Mulshine quotes Glenn Reynolds quoting me.
Here's the graph:
"Now we're hearing the same thing about the blogosphere. 'When enough bloggers take the leap, and start reporting on the statehouse, city council, courts, etc. firsthand, full-time, then the Big Media will take notice and the avalanche will begin,' Mr. Reynolds quotes another blogger as saying. If this avalanche ever occurs, a lot of bloggers will be found gasping for breath under piles of pure ennui. There is nothing more tedious than a public meeting."
The preceding and succeeding paragraphs take a few jabs at the amatuer pundits of the blogosphere which are to expected.
The whole column is essentially a rewrite of the hundreds that came before and would not be worth noting except the hear-say quote is from a blogger who actually goes out and, in Mulshine's own words:
"...is performing a valuable task for the reader -- one that no sane man would perform for free. He is assembling what in the business world is termed the 'executive summary.' Anyone can duplicate a long and tedious report. And anyone can highlight one passage from that report and either praise or denounce it. But it takes both talent and willpower to analyze the report in its entirety and put it in a context comprehensible to the casual reader."
Supposedly that 'talent and willpower' is found wanting in bloggers. Like I said, the whole op-ed is nothing new.
Except in that the quoted but un-named blogger used to reinforce his points is none other than me--JD Johannes.
Most recently I produced, shot and edited video reports for TIME Magazine's website and my video was aired on WCBS-TV New York, KWTV-TV Oklahoma City and KOTV-TV Tulsa.
I've made TV shows, dozens of customized "sweeps pieces" for local TV and produced five documentaries.
The subject of the quote from Glenn's book, Army of Davids , was about how someone who actually understood the law and legislative process would make a better State House reporter than a recent college graduate with a journalism degree. In other words, an expert in law and legislation should be covering the State House. I even explained to Glenn how the business model would work--old fashioned syndication.
I do not know why Mr. Mulshine did not give my name. If he had, it would undercut many of his statements. A news man of his esteem would have surely googled me and found that I was doing exactly what he says bloggers are not doing and nearly beating a major Hollywood director and billionaire .
(Or perhaps he did google me and for some reason thought I was not the type to read the Wall Street Journal.)
The hear-say quote, and this particular usage by Mr. Mulshine, is one of the reasons why blogs have succeeded--the core news consumer does not like hear-say quotes and does not want bland executive summaries for the "casual reader." The core news consumer wants hard news without bias and expert opinion.
Mr. Mulshine's use of a misleading hear-say quote explains well the demise of his beloved newspaper.
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Dec
19
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Friday, 19 December 2008 |
Normally the projectiles you have to worry about in Iraq are AK-47 rounds, shrapnel from a bomb, molten slugs from an EFP and Rocket Propelled Grenades.
If they are down to loafers, sandals and lace-ups, well, that in itself is a sign of progress.
As one who has spent quality and quanitity time in Iraq, I understand the shoe insult. But it is just that, an insult.
The Code Pink types do it verbally. Some prefer puppets and burning in effigy.
The declaration of a 'Shoe Intifada' shows that the opposition forces in Iraq have moved from lethal projectiles into tactical irrelevance.
An irrelevance only the media could misunderstand.
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Dec
16
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Tuesday, 16 December 2008 |
Are you a libertarian/conservative millionaire frustrated by the bias of the media?
Are you looking for a business opportunity that may or may not make money?
Then I have a deal for you. How would you like to buy your own ABC affiliate?
That's right. You can be the proud owner your own TV station in Topeka, KS. Forget Twitter Tweets, and blogs, and streaming video, you can have your own broadcast signal and have a direct impact on North East Kansas.
More importantly, you can have a larger impact nation-wide.
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Read more...
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Dec
11
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Friday, 12 December 2008 |
Information may want to be free, but the people who collect, package and deliver it need to get paid. The way they will be paid in the future may be an old and well established business model.
Not so long ago, when I was fresh out the Marines, I walked into one of the most profitable and well respected businesses in town--WIBW-TV in Topeka, Kansas.
The internet barely existed then and though cable TV existed, there were few channels and large minority of the public still watched TV through a crazy metal thing on their roof.
But even then, the signs were showing.
WIBW won the Neilson ratings year in and year out, but the total number of viewers steadily declined.
I worked my way up through the ranks from photographer to producing the 6 and 10pm newscasts. It was then that I became privy to the market reasearch studies offered by consultants who told us what kind of news should be aired.
General Managers and News Directors had been following the advice of consultants for years, but the total number of viewers kept dropping.
In the winter of 1998 I saw the flaw. The consultants were polling a random sample of people who owned telephones and televisions--everyone--and using those results to guide the priorities of news coverage. They still thought of news as a mass market product like soap, gasoline, luandry detergent, toothpaste, cars and deoderant. Things that people have to buy and that everyone will buy.
But news is a niche market. With the rise of cable news and newspapers putting content on the internet the core consumer had options. They no longer needed to tune in at 6pm and 10pm.
If a newspaper is going to put its content online, why on earth would I buy the print edition?
Two things happened at the same time. Options for the core consumer fragmented the model and the cadre of the core consumer contracted.
Everyday the for past few weeks I have been following the drama of two people whose last names I did not know until I finally broke down and googled them. But their faces were on the cover of US Weekly or some magazine like that perfectly positioned at eye level at the self-checkout stand of my local grocer.
I had no idea who this man and woman were and why anyone would pay the cover price to learn more about them. But obviously people do or I would not be treated to the exploits of Heidi and Spencer who apparantly are the stars of some reality show on MTV.
Talk about niche market segmentation. A magazine cover targetted at people who watch a niche type program on a niche network.
While no one needs to know anything about Heidi and Spencer, there are people who want to know and for some reason will pay the cover the price.
The news, important information, like what the Federal Government is doing with $700 Billion dollars is something the public needs to know. Information that will have a direct impact on your life like the amount of crude oil being extracted from Iraq is something the public needs to know. But the market is showing us that they may not want to know.
Responding to market conditions the people and entities that gather, package and deliver information are contracting--gathering less and delivering less.
Information will become scarce. Those who want to know and need to know will pay for it. Information will become a commodity available only to those who pay for it and price will be steep.
A system like this already exists parallel to the dying mass market media. It is common on Wall Steet and to serious investors and commodoties traders. Services like it are already used by major corporations and law firms. It can be found in nearly every state capital in the U.S.
It is the specialized subscription news letter and news service.
In Topeka, the State Capital of Kansas, there is a one-man news organization who makes a tidy living covering the legislature and politics in depth. His name is Martin Hawver. He is the writer, editor and publisher of Hawver's Capitol Report .
Several hundred lobbyists, politicians and political operatives subscribe to his report. The subscription fees have paid Martin's mortgage for two decades.
Martin Hawver sells a particular type of information to a customer who needs it and wants it enough to pay for it.
Hawver's Capital Report is the localized version of Charlie Cook's reports or Stu Rothenburg's reports or the subscription reports of pollsters.
The future of hard news, pure information, will be specialized and by subscription to those who need it enough to pay for it.
That information will be far more accurate and in-depth than the mass market news being given away now for free. Investment bankers and private equity firms are not going to pay for opinion. There will be hybrids, brief summaries that can draw enough clicks to get some advertising dollars, but the full purpose of the site will be to up-sell into another level of information access.
The mass market products that survive will also have to be purchased. They will be magazines like the New Yorker whose lengthy, well written features are more suited to be read on paper than on a screen. Or the Sunday New York Times which can only truly be enjoyed in your hands while sitting on the couch.
These products though, are not mass market. They are for a niche. A niche that will pay for it and for whom advertisers can micro target.
News organizations like the New York Times and Associated Press with contacts infrastructure around the globe will quit giving their information away for free and get out of the mass market business. The people who really need to know what is going on Thailand will gladly pay for it.
The world will then become a black hole for all but a few news purchasers.
In a darker vision, those with large enough interests will hire out the gathering of information to freelance fact finders. There are some companies who already perform this service along with security and risk analysis under the rubric of 'corporate intelligence.'
Those who already really need to know, are already paying for it.
The age of cheap information is over. The only free information that will be available in the future will be heavily laden with opinion, gossip or associated with celebrities or products to be sold.
Those who gather, package and deliver information have to pay the mortgage. And they will find a way to get paid. Information may want to be free, but gathering it is not.
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Oct
01
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Thursday, 02 October 2008 |
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Echoing Glenn's point about how to defeat the MSM/create alternatives to the MSM .
I am a producer of original material. I take very expensive equipment to very dangerous places.
Then I produce original documentaries--four so far , with number five on the way then I'll go to Afghanistan and Iraq and shoot three more.
I am the exact opposite of the pajama clad pundit.
So are Michael Yon and Michael Totten (even more than I.)
The sad truth of the blogosphere is that 90% of it based on the reporting of MSM or another media outlet. There is very little original reporting.
There are some original inputs of data coming from the right side of the blogosphere, but the blogosphere has a parasitic relationship to the MSM it despises.
The MSM still controls the killer app of gathering original information and producing original products. But even they have cut back back original reporting...it is cheaper and easier to line up a pundits and "strategists" to yell at each other than actually go out and produce hard news.
There is a vaccum in overseas reporting that some like me have filled. The vaccum exists because covering wars and foreign countries is expensive and difficult.
So far the nominally right side of blogosphere has started to fill that vaccum. But it is expensive and dangerous. (And I honestly don't know how many more times I have until that bullet or bomb finally catches up to me.)
Last Spring I set what I thought was a modest goal: Beat Brian DePalma's anti-soldier movie "Redacted."
I'm 68% of the way there.
If a small independent production could beat a film financed by a billionaire and directed by an major Hollywood director, then maybe someone would notice that there is a market for documentaries about Iraq that show the dignity and bravery of the troops. And hopefully that someone would back a much better director and deploy a real crew to Iraq.
As the blog father said , "There's a vast underserved population out there, for news, entertainment, movies, etc., and if people start serving it, the current "mainstream" media won't be so mainstream anymore."
The market must be proven with original content. And original content is not cheap or easy and, in my personal case, it is often dangerous.
So go see An American Carol this weekend.
Buy Michael Yon's book .
Buy Evan's DVD .
Hit Totten's tip jar .
Buy one of my DVDs .
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Oct
01
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Wednesday, 01 October 2008 |
Regular readers here have known for a year that the Surge could, would and did succeed.
The rest of the public is catching on now .
Almost a year-and-a-half ago I explained the process of how public opinion on the war could change.
The genius of a free republic is that each person knows his or her personal circumstance better than a central planner ever could and therefore make better decisions.
The downside in foreign policy is that so few citizens have the requisite information to hold a valid opinion.
In matters like Iraq, the public essentially wets their finger, sticks it in the air and feels which way the breeze from the Gross Ratings Points generated by the media is blowing.
Combined with a news media whose coverage of Iraq played directly into the strategy of the enemy, it is amazing the Surge was allowed to happen and last long enough to work.
The soft and un-rooted center will always follow the flow the Gross Rating Points breeze.
In the case of Iraq, it took more than a year for the breeze to change directions and finally be felt by those with their fingers in the air.
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Aug
16
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Saturday, 16 August 2008 |
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The story is usual pointless MSM offering, but look at the purported picture of Senator McCain .
Doh...
It is actually Ted Stevens. Geez. It is even embroidered on the jacket. I guess all older Senators look alike to the AP. That is ageism!
Screen cap below.
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Aug
08
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Saturday, 09 August 2008 |
Professor Glenn Reynold's blog was one of the first I discovered and has become a two to four time a day stop for me.
He was one of the first bloggers to notice what I was doing in Iraq and was kind enough to mention me in his book .
Glenn, thanks for all the great links, 'hehs' and analysis over the years.
Despite what that other Glenn says, I will always be proud to call you the Blog Father.
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Aug
06
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Thursday, 07 August 2008 |
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If the the singularity will make every one look like an American Gladiator...what happens to a guy like me?
At any rate, I say, bring on the singularity!
Look for my new book on how bloggers/documentary filmmakers/embedded reporters can get buff. Coming to Amazon soon.
(Really, that is me. Not sure about the book though.)
Until the book comes out, you can see some real non-game show combat on DVD .
BTW: Believe it or not, at 5'10" 204 pounds the Federal Government considers me overweight to borderline obese.
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Jul
20
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Monday, 21 July 2008 |
"I could put it in terms of tactics or strategy. I could quote Boyd," Lt. Col. Stephen "Godfather" Ferrando says near the end of episode #2 of HBO's Generation Kill .
And it is lines that like which are winning me over to the mini-series.
To 99% of the viewers of Generation Kill, the name "Boyd" and why a Marine Battalion Commander would quote Boyd means nothing, but to me...to me...it means a lot.
John Boyd , was an Airforce Fighter pilot. He was known at 'forty-second Boyd' because in air-to-air combat he would have his opponents in his sights within forty seconds.
Boyd is also the intellectual father of the way the Marine Corps fights.
That the line didn't get cut or thrown away is important to someone like me. Mentioning Boyd meant something to the Godfather and those officers he was talking to.
And it means something to me.
The details like that are what I enjoy most about Generation Kill.
From the radio frequencies written with a grease pen on the windshield of the Humvee, clearing a jammed .50 caliber machine gun during a fire-fight and the reactions of the Marines after surviving the fight.
The details work.
I've filmed a couple of shoot-outs in Iraq and the gunfight scene in Episode #2 gets close to what one would look like if you could shoot it from multiple angles without your crew and cameras being destroyed in the cross fire.
Eric Kocher, the key military advisor, has done a great job with those little details that I've seen up close and in-person.
Little details like how in the firefight, Sgt. Brad Colbert doesn't look through his scope, he looks over his scope using the front sight post to aim.
Generation Kill is one of the few war movies to get so many of the details--details that mean little to the average viewer--right.
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