Video Journalism: A "500-Year Storm"
I am in Belgium for the Digital News Affairs video journalism conference
Michael Rosenblum, who trains VJ’s and produces TV shows, gave the opening remarks at the DNA 2008 Digital News Affairs conference in Brussels, Belgium today. Michael is a well-known evangelist for the one-man-band VJ model, hailed by some as a visionary and reviled by traditional television crews as someone who is trying to kill TV.
He talked about the coming storm in the news industry, a storm which will be brought about by new technology putting the means of producing television into the hands of anyone.
“In the world of journalism and technology … we are headed for the 500-year storm. There is a giant tidal wave out there.”
“500 years ago Gutenberg brought the printing press to bear. Gutenberg thought the printing press was about making cheaper bibles and so did everyone else. But that’s not what it did. What the printing press did; it put the ability to publish in the hands of anyone who wanted to try, and that changed the world.”
“The invention of the printing press… brought about the world of a free press, which is what we live in today.”
“We don’t live in a world of print; we live in a world of video and online. And these little cameras, and these laptops; these are the Gutenberg printing press of the 21st Century.”
“They make it possible for anyone with an idea to publish in the most common medium in the world…
“This technological storm is going to wash away most of what we understand today and replace it with something entirely different. Whether you participate in it or are taken away by it, is entirely in your hands. But it is going to come.”
Click on this link to hear the whole 25 minutes of the speech.
Michael Rosenblum
(photo by Chuck Fadely)