New York Times – Early on in any journalist’s career, the young reporter is besieged by advice from all sides. Flacks, sources and run-of-the-mill busybodies will pound on the phone about why the reporter isn’t covering this or that story. And then, a sage editor will appear and counsel the newbie: “We decide what the news is.”
That truism still attains; it’s just the meaning of the pronoun has changed. Yes, we decide what is news as long as “we” now includes every sentient human with access to a mouse, a remote or a cellphone.
On Friday, NBC spent the day trying to plug online leaks of the splashy opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in order to protect its taped prime-time broadcast 12 hours later. There was a profound change in roles here: a network trying to delay broadcasting a live event, more or less TiVo-ing its own content.
Consumers have no issue with time-shifting content — in some younger demographics, at least half the programming is consumed on a time-shifted basis — they just want to be the ones doing the programming. Trying to stop foreign broadcasts and leaked clips from being posted on YouTube — NBC’s game of “whack-a-mole” as my colleague Brian Stelter described it — was doomed to failure because information not only wants to be free, its consumers are cunning, connected and will find a workaround on any defense that can be conceived.http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/business/media/11carr.html?ex=1376107200&en=1f22b10bc49f6207&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
