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Sunday, June 17, 2007

Not Law but Interesting - College students succeed in the new media world

But it was their own initiative that made it happen. Two stories, one from each coast:

From the LA Times, a front-page story by Jim Puzzanghera headed "The political guru wore tennis shoes: A recently graduated college student who made YouTube videos in his dorm room has captured the attention of some presidential hopefuls." The guru is "James Kotecki, a 21-year-old international politics major who has become the candidates' unlikely guide to the YouTube demographic." More:

In only a few months, Kotecki has managed to transform himself into a respected campaign commentator using only a 3-year-old Dell laptop and $60 Logitech Web camera. CNN, National Public Radio and the Washington Post, among others, have sought his views on presidential campaign videos.

"He's not only using the medium effectively, he's showing the political establishment how to be better at understanding the dynamics of online communications," said Andrew Rasiej, founder of TechPresident.com, a site that tracks how candidates are using the Web. "They are responding to him because they feel like if they don't, they'll be viewed as having missed the boat."

And then there is this story from the Nov. 20, 2006 NY Times - I remember reading it when it came out. The story by Julie Bosman is titled "The Kid With All the News About the TV News." A few quotes:
TOWSON, Md. — When people in the television news business want to find out what’s going on in their industry, they turn to a blog called TVNewser. But while the executives obsessively checking TVNewser are mostly high powered and highly paid, the person who creates it is not: he is Brian Stelter, a baby-faced 21-year-old at Towson University here, a few miles north of Baltimore. * * *

Mr. Stelter’s blog (tvnewser.com), a seven-day-a-week, almost 24-hour-a-day newsfeed of gossip, anonymous tips, newspaper article links and program ratings, has become a virtual bulletin board for the industry.

It is read religiously by network presidents, media executives, producers and publicists, not for any stinging commentary from Mr. Stelter, whose style is usually described as earnest, but because it provides a quick snapshot of the industry on any given day. Habitués include Mr. Williams and Jonathan Klein, the president of CNN’s domestic operations, who long ago offered up his cellphone number to Mr. Stelter.

“The whole industry pays attention to his blog,” said Jeffrey W. Schneider, a senior vice president of ABC News. “It would not surprise me if I refreshed my browser 30 to 40 times a day.”

In April Mr. Stelter attended the White House Correspondents’ Dinner as a guest of MSNBC.

“He was quite a celebrity,” said Jeremy Gaines, a spokesman for MSNBC. “Literally two tables over was George Clooney, and at our table was TVNewser, and people were waiting in line to see him.”

Perhaps this is what the techno-geeks had in mind when they invented the Internet — a device to squash not only time and space, but also social class and professional hierarchies, putting an unprepossessing Maryland college student with several term papers due in a position to command the attention and grudging respect of some of society’s most famous and powerful personalities.

Cool, right? Well, it gets better.

Here is a story from last Tuesday, June 12th, in Media Bistro's Daily FishbowlNY, headed "NY Times Steals Our TVNewser." It begins:

Well, score one for the Gray Lady. Brian Stelter, our TVNewser blog wunderkind, is leaving the friendly confines of the mediabistro.com server farm for the New York Times.
The story then quotes from a Times internal memo making the announcement. The memo begins:
Colleagues,

You read about him on the front page of The New York Times last November, in "The Kid With All the News About the TV News." Now you'll read him in The New York Times.

Brian Stelter, the TVNewser blogger, is joining the Times next month as an 8i reporter to cover the media world for NYTimes.com and for the paper. He will report to media editor Bruce Headlam, and will work closely with Business Day reporters and with our friends in Culture, including television editor Steve Reddicliffe and reporters Bill Carter, Jacques Steinberg and Ed Wyatt.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on June 17, 2007 07:58 PM
Posted to General News