I Want My Blog TV

Ever since launching this flimsy craft into the blogosphere several months ago, I’ve yearned to televise some of the trip. Why? Well, it’s what I do for a living. Also, I enjoy pointing the big end of my lens at things that interest me. Mostly though, I think its newsworthy. Citizen journalism is changing more than the media, it’s bringing vibrant voices to digital town squares everywhere and extrapolating the global export of information in the process. That’s more than enough reason to feature it on the local news.

But how to make it interesting for the casual viewer? As riveting as I and others find these sites, they’re still just computer screens - not the most exciting things to aim a TV camera at. To get to the core of the local blogosphere I knew I’d have to visit the people behind the pages. No problem. There are enough self-publishing virtuosos in Greensboro alone to warrant a series of special reports. Knowing I’d only be able to skim the surface, I gathered my tools and called for back-up.

Enter Bob Buckley. The veteran reporter agreed to captain this voyage into cyberspace and wrap his thoughts around the material we gathered along the way. So off we went together and separate, rendezvousing with writers and meeting minstrels, all while covering the news of the day. A few weeks and half dozen optical discs later, we had the footage and findings we needed to fashion a Buckley Report on the Piedmont Blogosphere. While I returned to my litany of feature pieces, press conferences and breaking news, Bob banged out a script, a highly-detailed three and a half minute opus we editors not so lovingly describe, as a ’Buckumentary’.

Thus, I find myself ensconced in the edit bay. For all the physical effort that goes into gathering images with a hefty TV news camera, twice as much energy goes into the art of slicing and dicing. Whereas that used to involve the whirl and growl of synchronized tape decks, I now find myself hovering over a non-linear timeline and hurtling editorial thunderbolts from on high - all with the click of a mouse. I love it. Editing has always been one of my favorite parts of The Job; it’s a (mostly) delightful process of folding reality, enhancing images and bending time. So as I search for nuance and cadence in this sea of footage, mark your calendar for Monday night at 10:00 pm, as that’s when the Buckley Report on the Piedmont blogosphere will air on FOX 8 WGHP. If I get in done in time, that is...