The Los Angeles Times goes multimedia

March 20, 2003 8:46 PM

The Los Angeles Times goes multimedia. For the past few weeks, the LA Times has begun a significant push into offering video, audio, and interactive Flash on their website. One of the most interesting aspects is that the paper has moved one step beyond simply replaying AP Television clips as many sites have done; the LA Times writers are stand before the cameras and microphones themselves and report stories in a stuttering, non-hairsprayed, introverted demeanor that I find very refreshing, though so far I have gleaned very little additional information from it. When does (or can) this mode of journalism on the web rise above gimmickry or 'just because we can' and add value to a written article? Can video/tv news rise above mere spectacle?
posted by 4easypayments (3 comments total)

This would be great, if it wasn't the LA Times.

I got nothin.
posted by cinematique at 8:58 PM on March 20, 2003

I just bought the Yahoo PlatinumPass to watch the NCAA games, and get ABC as well as a few other channels included. It's normally 10- a month, though an extra 7 bucks got me every NCAA game in the men's draw, which I thought was a damn good deal. In any case, it runs at nearly TV quality for me, though I do have a university connection that downloads at well over a meg a second.

The ESPN Motion on the ESPN site is another great example of internet/TV integration.

While there is still limited demand for such service until true broadband is deployed (my 300k dsl at home won't cut it for streaming video), the last couple months have brought us the closest thing to Internet TV that I've seen so far. It's fantastically more useful from a content point of view than some other hyped web innovations, so here's hoping it becomes more popular with the big news sites.
posted by Kevs at 9:25 PM on March 20, 2003

Pornographers are always the earliest adopters of new technologies ;-)
posted by WolfDaddy at 10:03 PM on March 20, 2003