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Eric Meyer (meyer@newslink.org) asked:
 
"Did a lot of people rush to download audio or video of the speech Monday,
or was it just another routine piece?"

I think anything but routine, and in a piece I'm working about on what the
major networks are doing with their online operations, I intend to ask this
same question. I don't know how common my own behavior was, but I did go
directly to a news site (two actually, the New York Times and then
ABCNEWS.com, which seemed to have better quality video available) to listen
again and again to the speech, to pick it apart, to listen between the
lines, analyze it, pause the audio and reflect on what was being said, then
to continue.

All of these things are possible with a VCR, obviously, and there's nothing
new in my behavior. However, I'm just not a VCR guy, I wouldn't have gone
out of my way to load a tape to catch this event for posterity.  But I knew
that Web sites would. Their presence and capabilities make it much more
likely that I would behave that way. And having done it, I think I came
away with a greater understanding of what was said having gone to the Web
as my source of analysis content. I didn't need to have Wolf Blitzer doing
it for me, I just did what he would do. I played the tape again and again,
about six times, until I felt I had fully understood the substance of the
president's statement. 

If I had read the newspaper's transcript, I could have done absorbed the
same information, but not as completely. Like a courtroom transcript which
loses all of the tone and emotion of a proceeding -- these being key parts
of what is being said often enough -- a newspaper would have only given me
the words. The weight and manner of delivery of those words would not have
been reflected. The hardness and the intensity of Bill Clinton's manner
that night would have been mirrored only dimly, had I relied on a next-day
transcript.

To get back to Eric's point, I'll quote Merrill Brown, the editorial head
of MSNBC. He remarked in a speech not long ago that these big media events
-- the nanny case, the Lewinski revelations (or quasi-revelations as they
seemed to be back in January), the president's mea culpa/his-a fault-a
speech -- consistently drive more and more people to the Web to catch their
news. And, hopefully, to analyze and digest it more completely, as I did
Monday night.

"Today," Brown said, "we are living in an era in which the capabilities of
the Internet are defining the norms of news delivery."

If he's right, and I believe he is, it is an unavoidable consequence that
the Net drew people like a magnet Monday night and Tuesday to hear and see
Clinton's incredible TV appearance.

My two cents.

Kevin Featherly
free-lancer and consultant
Bloomington, MN





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