Merging Traditional And Social Mediums To Better Serve An Audience

Photo courtesy Steve Inskeep’s Instagram account: @steve_inskeep.

 

There was a wonderful example of merging-the-mediums storytelling today, 2-4-16, with Steve Inskeep reporting from Tehran, Iran.

First, I got a “publicity” preview and teaser of what Inskeep and his NPR crew were up to in Iran from interesting photos of Tehran’s subway system on Inskeep’s Instagram account. I happen to be particularly intrigued by photos of subway stations and people using them, so the Instagrams caught my attention right away.

Framing his radio story around exploring Tehran’s economic realities on hand, Inskeep wove a fascinating tale of Tehran’s cultural and economic life, and the various divisions of such, through his more traditional radio medium on today’s NPR Morning Edition show. I’m glad I had the visual preview beforehand though, as then I could “go along” with them in a much more visually imaginative way.

I need visual prompts. I’ve never, despite years of work in visual mediums, been all that visually imaginative. I’m a text-oriented person who works (and writes) better with literal prompts and signs and messaging of a more graphical interpretation.

In other words, radio storytelling, especially in a culture and city as intriguing and vital as Tehran, has its limits despite even Inskeep’s mastery of the medium. And he’s nothing if not a visually-minded storyteller and reporter when he’s on the move. Snapping interesting, contextual photos for Instagram (or wherever) clearly was a perfectly natural response to his new geography.

Thus, social media served as a natural enhancement to and for traditional forms of broadcasting. Especially within a place I’ve long been intrigued by and had often heard stories about from relatives who’d lived there ages ago (Shah times). And hope to one day visit myself.

Reporting about a place and a people with an enhanced level of audience comprehension and service can only help forge a stronger, intriguing, and respectful relationship between two cultures.

Waking-Up To John McCain

I gotta tell you, waking-up to John McCain (on Morning Edition of course) was not half bad. Not that some Cheshire cat grin spread across my face with morning, uh, recall of the night before. But hearing his voice on the Renee Montagne interview talking about the situation in Russia/Georgia was a decent reassurance that we have a Republican out there with a strong brain wave on foreign policy. (McCain said we might be needing to readjust our relationships with Putin. Ya think?)

In other words, I didn’t lunge for the OFF button as I inevitability have over the last eight years… given the unfortunate circumstance, always a possibility, of waking-up to the idiot babble of George W. Bush on a morning news program.

Once McCain started talking about non-foreign policy though, he started regressing into utter bullshit, saying, when pressed by Montagne, that his campaign was surely NOT going negative over Obama. That’s just total crap, and McCain knows it, and he’s the worst bullshitter on the planet.

That’s why pointy-head NPR listeners (and reporters too) such as moi have always LIKED McCain. Because he was such a great non-bs’er. A sharp, silver-tongued, intelligent and humorous voice of reason… with some excellent banter served-up on the side.

Such as when he told the audience this morning to turn-off their computers for a minute and go outside and get some fresh air. Now that’s the old McCain we’ve grown to know and like over his many years of service; not afraid to tell his audience to go to hell and back, if that’s indeed where he feels they need to be directed.

But this New McCain makeover the RNC has given him, the one that has him spouting utter bs we don’t believe, such as ludicrous statements about how his campaign isn’t going negative, is moreorless botched plastic surgery, making him sound the way Priscilla Presley currently looks. Like, uh, not so great, eh?

What’s so freakin’ hard about letting McCain just be McCain, Repugs? When you take a genuine straight talker and have him all tied-up in bullshit and spin, guess what? We notice! And we’re reminded, yet one more time, about how we really don’t want to be in the same bedroom, bar, ktichen, hallway, boardroom, classroom, freeway, highway, war room… ANYWHERE… listening to, let alone voting for, a lying, phony Republican ever again.

Nor do I care to wake-up to one either. At least not a phony one who feels he’s so powerful and on-message and omnipotent, and that we the public are such dupe-able clueless sheep, that we’ll believe any line he tries out on us.

Listen here to McCain on Morning Edition.

Obama and McCain – A Genuine Horse Race

While NPR spoke of Virginia as a battleground state this morning on Morning Edition (ME) while they visited the VA Obama and McCain campaign offices, Matt Towery of InsideAdvantage says Obama isn’t “stalling out” in the Presidential campaign at all; rather, this is a genuine horse race with good, measured momentum for the Obama campaign.

And not only is the South’s Virginia in serious play to go blue, but North Carolina and Georgia too, as much as that concept is consistently poo-poo’d by Republicans.

Towery’s far more interesting, knowledge-based perspective and explaination, as opposed to the not-terribly-with-it rambling of some Joe in a Virginia McCain campaign office (found in the ME story) is here. And yes, political conventions might be awful on TV, but they are a complete blast to attend.

Note to self: dig-up old ’88 conventions photos and scan them. (Yep, that’s how long it’s been since I’ve been to one. Hell, with the Olympics going on then the conventions coming-up right after that, I am feeling woefully like a media left-behind here in the ATL. Whine.)