Don’t Bogart That Video, My AJC Friend.

The AJC is now doing original, online, AJC-branded video packages for their website, such as the one you can’t see here about grits. I like grits. A lot. I like most-things-southern. I like videos. Like to make ’em. Like to watch ’em. Like to embed ’em. Especially on my blogs – and that other wildly popular blog with the thousands of (mostly southern) uniques a day I write for too.

Naturally enough, I’d like to embed the AJC grits video on my blog. Or link to it on TrueGritz. Or put it on the SGR. Or Peach Pundit, but only if it turned-out (through superior reporting of course) that grits were political. In other words… any number of places this one blogger alone could distribute that one video – for them. For free! Just because I like, uh, grits so darn much.

But AJC productions/videos are not embeddable. Oh well. Too bad. Their loss. And lost opportunity. It really does make you want to go bash your head into a wall for the level of frustration they can crank for the blogosphere over there at our hometown news shoppe. For every chance the AJC gets/buys to build their GEORGIA-based community, they take two steps back from it. Hell, it’s like they’re running away at times.

AJC management folk (and you know who you are, and I know you’ll see this because you are Googling your name on the hour or have had your secretary set-up those Google name alerts) lemme give you a piece of unsolicited advice: the people you need to support your online endeavors are no doubt many, including the passive group formerly known as “the reader.” But don’cha think you’d want to be enlisting the assistance and the support of the sort of folk who are operating as online content creators and distributors — in GEORGIA?!

How loud can I yell it? AJC: YOU ARE A GEORGIA BIG MEDIA OUTLET. WHY ARE YOU NOT BUILDING YOUR GEORGIA ONLINE COMMUNITY AMONGST THE VERY PEOPLE WHO ARE OPERATING WITHIN THE GEORGIA ONLINE COMMUNUITY? WE ARE HERE! BUT WHERE ARE YOU?

Sigh… I’m going to go Friend on Facebook that Used Car Guy who’s in charge of Cox newspapers now. Sandy Schwartz, I think he goes by. Give ‘ole Julia Wallace a DM Tweet. Or comment on the AJC’s Director of Culture & Change’s personal blog. See what she’s posted today about that good ‘ole culture ‘n change thang she’s workin’. Heck, for all I know she could have made a rap video by now!

Since these folk running OUR hometown news shoppe are, of course, so connected to the online community (as “online” is where all this “change” is coming from, right?) then of course they personally have been out there online, mucking it up in the blogosphere or wherever. For years now I’d imagine. Surely by now they should be not only using all the cool online toys and tools, new media and news mediums such as personal & indie blogs, Google Groups, Newsvine, YouTube, uStream.tv, Blip.tv,  one of those nifty Nokia 95s, Mahalo, Facebook, Twitter, etc., they should be veritable experts.

Oh wait. Silly me. Reality check needed. On second thought, think I’ll just pour another cup of coffee and mosey on over to CNN dot com.