Confessional Lutheran theology, hagiography, philosophy, music, culture, sports, education,
and whatever else is on the fevered mind of Orycteropus Afer
02 August 2005
A New Al Gore Rhythm
And I used to wonder why Pappy Vark called it the "Idiot Box."
Looks like ex-veep, part-time tonsil-tickler, and full-time tree hugger impersonator Al "Albert" Gore has a new venture.
According to an AP story at Wired News, he's fronting Current, a new TV network. I'm not sure of the politics — Gore denies they'll be advancing any particular political POV — but Current is asking the viewers also to be the content providers. Folks will not only upload suggestions, à la a radio request line, but also packaged video content, ready to be beamed out to Current viewers. To stay in the here and now, "Every half-hour, Current promises a news update using data from Google on news stories most frequently searched for on the web." Can you imagine the FCC waiting until the next Paris Hilton folly tops the most-searched news item on Google?
All of the above is preface. Where I think it gets tricky comes from Current staking its future on a bunch of people who were weaned on America's Funniest Videos and came of age with Jackass as providers of meaningful content in two to seven minute pods. I wonder if the target audience has a collective attention span approaching the upward boundary of that brief time. And judging by some of the blogs I've had the misfortune to encounter, I wonder that, while democracy is protected by a free press, if a free press can be run by a democracy.
Well, Current, it looks like you've got spunk. But to quote Lou Grant, "I hate spunk!" ¶ 00:55 |
Looks like ex-veep, part-time tonsil-tickler, and full-time tree According to an AP story at Wired News, he's fronting Current, a new TV network. I'm not sure of the politics — Gore denies they'll be advancing any particular political POV — but Current is asking the viewers also to be the content providers. Folks will not only upload suggestions, à la a radio request line, but also packaged video content, ready to be beamed out to Current viewers. To stay in the here and now, "Every half-hour, Current promises a news update using data from Google on news stories most frequently searched for on the web." Can you imagine the FCC waiting until the next Paris Hilton folly tops the most-searched news item on Google?
All of the above is preface. Where I think it gets tricky comes from Current staking its future on a bunch of people who were weaned on America's Funniest Videos and came of age with Jackass as providers of meaningful content in two to seven minute pods. I wonder if the target audience has a collective attention span approaching the upward boundary of that brief time. And judging by some of the blogs I've had the misfortune to encounter, I wonder that, while democracy is protected by a free press, if a free press can be run by a democracy.
Well, Current, it looks like you've got spunk. But to quote Lou Grant, "I hate spunk!" ¶ 00:55 |
