Newspapers bite back

In an important piece for New York magazine, Kurt Anderson argues that contrary to prevailing thought, newspaper brands are quietly but quickly gaining the upper hand over traditional broadcast media.
In You Must Be Streaming (note that quaintly bizarre American convention of Capping All Words In Headlines), Anderson picks out some great examples of innovation by mainstream print media journalists in the US, such as this from the New York Times's David Carr.
Or the brilliant Art Buchwald video, from the Times's superb Last Word project, opening with the unbeatable (indeed, immortal) line: "Hi - I'm Art Buchwald and I just died."
Part of the reason is that print hacks embracing this new world have less fear of treading all over those broadcast conventions that tv journalists have had ingrained in them since college. The result is that "minute for minute" the best newspaper video offerings are better than tv news, Anderson says:

"Whereas the YouTube paradigm is amateurs doing interesting things with cameras, the newspapers’ Web videos are professional journalists operating like amateurs
in the best old-fashioned sense."

What's more, Anderson adds:

"I can easily imagine newspapers’ Web-video portals becoming the TV-journalism destinations of choice for smart people—that is, in the 21st century, the dominant nineteenth-century journalistic institution, newspapers, might beat the dominant twentieth-century institution, TV, at the premium part of its own game."

Is that same spirit of innovation beginning to prevail in the UK? Probably not to the same extent. Yet. But there are certainly signs that a numer of willing volunteers are determined to enjoy being in front of the camera as much as behind a keyboard. I'd pick out fashion editor Hilary Alexander of the Telegraph and motoring journalist Jason Dawe of the Times as early adopters who are having fun in the new playground. There'll be plenty more out there.

Anderson signs off:

"This very moment, before anyone professes to know much more than anyone else, is probably the beginning of the new medium’s great golden age. Enjoy it while it lasts."