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One
Final "Bite Me" For the Road
Written
By Rick Ellis, April 26th, 2001
For
anyone who's worked at a "new media/Internet" news organization
in the past couple of years, it's all turned out to be a bittersweet
experience. Lots of sites, buckets full of money thrown at an audience
that no one is even quite sure exists. We were going to cover the
tech and financial world in a way that had never been done before.
We were smart, aggressive, willing to work nightmarish hours for
more than just a promise of eventual riches.
We
wanted to make a difference.
It's
seems so naive at this late date, but not much more than a year
ago, cubicles all over the US were filled with hungry journalists,
pounding the phones and covering the markets. Dan Rather? Out of
touch? Peter Jennings? Please. No, we looked at things in a new
way. We didn't just have a computer on our desk, we lived the immersive
lives of web junkies. We believed that the Internet was changing
society in much the same way radio altered the landscape earlier
in the century. And like Murrow and his band of CBS newsmen, we
were going to cover this sea change the same way they covered W.W.II.
We were going to live it.
Of
course, like nearly everyone else in the industry, we were idiots.
Full of ourselves and forgetting that change is never smooth or
pretty or painless.
And
when you look at those tech and new media news organizations that
survive, they less resemble a new paradigm than a high-tech version
of bad local television. Yahoo's Financevision, CNET's radio experiment--these
aren't anything new. Close your eyes and they sound depressingly
similar to the type of coverage you'd get from any minor market
local television affiliate. They just replace the headline stories
of weather, sports and murders with pieces on the stock price of
Cisco or the latest Microsoft web initiative. In fact, many of the
people you'll hear are the same ones who otherwise would be hosting
a swap shop show on some South Dakota broadcast outlet.
What's
even worse is that these companies have brought along the worst
traits of their old world counterparts. Way too many people are
valued for their good looks, for their willingness to work long
hours for low pay just to say they're a "broadcaster."
Managers that confuse "repurposing" with "reporting."
Perhaps
the most striking example of this race for mediocrity is the newly
revamped Tech TV cable channel. Formerly known as ZDTV, it now features
a live block of "news" programming" that manages
to somehow encompass everything that is wrong with new media journalism.
Honestly, you couldn't make it worse if someone held a gun to your
head and threatened to pull the trigger.
This
rambling recounting of my experiences as online journalist was inspired
by a rant that appeared earlier this week on a private area of the
TechTV web site. A webmaster there was leaving--either fired or
quitting, depending on who you talked to. But his last shot was
to post this page including his thoughts on what was wrong with
Tech TV. I reprint it here not just because it I think it gives
a great deal of insight into what's wrong with that organization.
I also think it says a lot about what's wrong with their competitors.
Where do I start.
Many people
shrug their shoulders about TechTV, they sit there and say, "Hey,
it's just like any other company, terrible managers, dysfunctional
organizational structures, bad communication. Whaddya gonna do?"
But these people are mistaken. TechTV is far, far worse than most
companies for the simple reason that the people at the top - namely
Larry Wangberg, Greg Drebin, Glenn Farrell, and on the Web side,
David Miller and Lynn Weiss - are in various ways incompetent, arrogant,
strategically moronic and completely inept at keeping employees
happy and motivated.
So here's my
Top Ten list on why TechTV will likely be out of money by this time
next year:
10. The driver's
asleep at the wheel. CEO Larry Wangberg can barely put a sentence
together. Here are a few examples of his handiwork when he sends
an e-mail to "ALL" -
"If you
aren't sleeping right now I hope that you are standing very tall.
What a lifetime memorable world class day."
Or
"Sets are
looking great, most of our technical infrastructure is working,
and it is great to see the rehersals. Know that there is a lot that
still is getting pulled together and that you are working very hard."
Not exactly
the words of rocket scientist, nor someone who knows how to spell
"rehearsals."
9. The TechTV
concept made sense - TWO YEARS AGO. Of course technology isn't
going away, and of course people are still interested in it. The
question is how much do they care RIGHT NOW. Management chose to
put all their eggs in one basket: Tech Live (a.k.a. Tech Dive),
a 9 = hour block of programming that is currently driving most faithful
TechTV viewers away from the channel. They launched this flagship
product at the precise moment when the market was at its lowest,
when NOBODY in their right minds is investing in tech stocks, and
when we are in the middle of a recession (or whatever it is) during
which people have far less money to buy tech products. Nice move.
Should've stuck with Leo TV and renamed it the Help Channel.
8. Target
audience doesn't exist. TechTV wants to become the destination
channel for all those sophisticated technology professionals and
financial market guys who are watching TV in their cubes. Um, yeah.
Here's the big problem. Those guys don't EXIST, because the only
people who have TVs in their cubes are TechTV employees. The financial
guys are all tuned in to Bloomberg and CNBC. To believe that these
guys would turn away from these channels to watch Carmine Gallo
or Pam Krueger fumble over the day's tech market news is not just
laughable, it's pathetic. They should have been happy with TechTV's
original audience: horny teenagers harassing female talent, shut-ins
who use the Internet as their only form of social interaction, and
techie geeks who count their mothers among "women they've kissed."
7. "Business
strategy" is a term that makes people at TechTV snicker.
Most people employed at TechTV know that the content and business
strategy at TechTV is likely to change every few weeks. Of course,
I didn't know that when I was hired in October under a system that
had the site divided into five stand-alone zones, each with an executive
producer. The five-zone system lasted about three months. The funny
thing is, most of the "new" strategies that the braintrust
comes up with are actually old strategies that didn't work revisited.
Is it any wonder that the latest "business plan" for the
Web constructed by gurus (or idiot savants, depending on how you
look at it) David Miller and Glenn Farrell was taken with a grain
of salt? This was the FIRST business plan for the Web side, and
it came nearly four years after the site launched.
6. The best
people at the company are either laid off or kept in menial positions.
Damn right I'm talking about me. But really, that's not the whole
picture. There are definitely smart, talented people at TechTV -
the problem is that they are in no position to have an impact on
the direction of the product, company or anything else. We have
two terms for the people with an "associate" or even "producer"
title: web monkey and gerbil. The verbs, "to web monkey"
or "to gerbil (gerbiling)" also have common usage. These
mean the same thing. People are trained to get on their wheel and
wrestle with an archaic publishing tool eight hours a day to get
stories up on the site. In the meantime, their talent and creative
power goes circling down the drain.
5. The company
is chocked full of, and run by, TV people. For TechTV to claim
it is remotely a Web or technology company is, again, a big joke.
It is a TV station, run by TV people, with a TV focus, and the Web,
as a friend once told me, is and always will be the "red-headed
stepchild." I don't want to stereotype here - well, wait a
second, yes I do. TV people are in general more stupid, shallow
and less pleasant professionally than anyone I've ever worked with.
I think this is because of the medium they work in - which by its
very nature is superficial, stimulating without being intellectual,
and sometimes outright boring. They don't call it the boob tube
for nothing. I just wish the boobs had stayed away from TechTV.
4. The Audience
of One. Everyone at TechTV knows what this means. Whether you
know him as "Uncle Paul," "The Man," or simply
"God," he's the only reason TechTV even exists. When rich
guys have visions, strange creatures are born. When extremely rich
guys have visions, really screwed up, mutant monster-freaks are
born. Hence TechTV. Content on the channel and the site are geared
to please Paul, and nothing else, no matter what management tells
you. Simple reason: if you don't please the guy who's cutting your
paycheck, it's all over. But having an audience of one is extremely
dangerous - when the One gets bored and gets up to walk out of the
theater, the show's over. Paul Allen loves the idea of TechTV -
but even he, with his abyss-like pockets, won't keep this charity
case afloat forever.
3. Lying
to employees. Though nobody in upper management would ever admit
it, there's a serious trust problem within TechTV. It's all about
the now infamous "need-to-know" policy, meaning information
is only shared at the exact moment when you need to know (which
is always too late). This translates to a top-down decision-making
process: a few idiots assemble for "off-sites" (oh, be
very afraid when that happens), people and structures are moved
around like toy soldiers on a battlefield chart, and stupid decisions
are handed down a week later, after rumors have already destroyed
the credibility of the managers. Employees and their input are completely
ignored in this process, so it's no big surprise that paranoia,
low morale and a "cover-your-ass" approach to everything
are par for the course at TechTV.
2. B-Grade
talent (OK, maybe C-Grade). Channel and program loyalty is built
on personalities. Ted Koppel and Peter Jennings made Nightline.
Willow Bay made Moneyline (at least for me). And the only guy who
TechTV viewers love is Leo Laporte, who I'll grant has a real personality
that touches people. TechTV's response to this was to move him off
his show, make him read the news and be less funny, and reduce him
to occasional help tips on Tech Dive. And then there's the rest
of the talent. Um, yeah. In the TV world, second or third-tier cable
channels are just launching pads to bigger and better things. Problem
is, nobody at TechTV, with the possible exception of Michaela, Erica
Hill and a couple others, has a chance at the big time. Nothing
against them, they try hard, but attempting to do ad lib on Tech
Live for people who aren't used to thinking original thoughts is
like throwing a cat into a swimming pool.
And the No.
1 reason TechTV will fail:
Over-ambition:
We're not "all experts" on technology. This is a mantra
that Jim Louderback likes to throw out there. But there are a couple
of harsh realities to face: First, TechTV does a couple things well.
It puts out product reviews as soon as new gadgets are released,
and it (or I should say, Leo) does a great job with techie help
questions. Had TechTV stuck with what it knew, namely those two
strengths, maybe a niche for it would have been found. But no, TechTV
has to be the "CNBC of tech." We have to explode everything
into some big supernova of tech programming, because we're all "experts"
and can provide so much more insight into the tech world than multimillion
dollar media giants on cable, network TV and the Web.
But you can't
build a mansion with toothpicks. Anyone with an ounce of knowledge
about technology can watch five minutes of Tech Live and see that
TechTV is following the news, not breaking it, and it is speaking
down to the lowest common denominator Grandma-who-just-got-email,
not up toward the digerati of the Valley. Trying to break news is
admirable, but you have to be realistic about what resources you
have to actually do it. And it doesn't help that TechTV has as much
name recognition among tech sources as a small community weekly
newsletter.
Right now the
best "up-to-the-minute" stuff the network can do are things
that happen in San Francisco and are technically easy to cover (see
Napster, ad nauseum). Have a story break somewhere else and you're
looking at a couple hours of arguments on renting crews, trucks
and feeds, and then more delays in getting those things to actually
work. You only have to look at the digitizing process - namely,
actually having to physically bring a tape over to some poor slob
in the dig room, who takes several hours to manually run it through
(welcome to broadband) - to realize that TechTV overstepped its
bounds. It will never match the quality of news coverage that other
cable channels can give, and for management to think that we can
do "more, with less" was just a pipe dream. Maybe that's
all it ever was, a whimsical dream from the imagination of old Uncle
Paul.
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