Outtubing The Tube

            Recently, Chronicle editor Tim Wood wrote about cutting the cord on his television.  It caused me to reflect on my own evolving relationship with the box.

            Having grown up without cable in a reception area TV Guide could have as listed the stations as “Snow,” “Static” and “Don’t Get Used to This,” television was almost a guilty pleasure.  At friends’ houses, I’d see tired re-runs and just revel at the clarity of the picture and sound.

            Like meeting a childhood crush years later, I had a second romance with television when shows like “24” came out.  I was much more mature and had developed other interests in its absence.  My news came from NPR.  My entertainment was from movies or books.  My pastime was writing.

          Television itself had grown, too.  Firstly, its complexion had cleaned up – meaning, I had gotten cable.  And I was surprised to see we had more in common.  As I became disappointed with what was offered at the movies, television produced shows of higher caliber, with taut writing and high production values.  That hooked me.  But that branching off brought with it so much non-reality reality television that I started to wonder if this relationship had a future.

            I’ve also been lucky with my choice of offspring.  While Sofie has been watching our copy “Mary Poppins” practically since she was able to drool, now at four years old she doesn’t hunger for television like I did.  Instead, she does something I would have never done – Sofie turns the television off if she is bored with it.  And what she does watch, outside of DVD’s in English or German, is typically confined to an hour or so of PBS in the morning.  Maybe she inherited my strong aversion to commercials.

            Now with a writers’ strike looming, even more reality and game shows are planned.  So everything that brought me back into a relationship with television will be gone.  Meanwhile those aspects that I just can’t stand are going to take over.  Add to that the lack of serious attachment with my daughter, and it doesn’t take a degree in psychotherapy to see where this is headed.

            But, like many of us, I’ve found something new and exciting.  A few months back, I missed an episode of “Battlestar Galactica” because I had to work, so the next day, I watched it online.  Same thing happened with “24.”  Again, I watched a whole episode at my computer.  Then one cold, rainy day when the library was closed, Sofie and I found a series of puppet shows produced by a library in Canada on YouTube. With a little more effort and expense, I could get my choice of content to watch when and where I want in my house, but not from my TV.

            Not exactly cutting the cord, just a very limited media receiver.  One that I’ve grown apart from.

            But for those in the media, like Tim and I, the question becomes how much do we remain consumers of new media and how much do we try to work with it? This column is not just printed on paper – it is online in various forms.  The article I wrote last year on walking to Monomoy included video on YouTube.  I could take that one step further and use GoogleEarth to create an interactive route with photos on Panoramio, and make space for a discussion with readers.

            And it is not just the people of Harwich and Chatham that see this, but the world.  Unfiltered.

            Now imagine anyone in town deciding on their own to cover a story with the same treatment.  Links to selected video clips from public meetings. Geotagged references to parties involved. Space for public comment.  Complete coverage, balanced or not.  It is so easy to accomplish that it is a surprise it hasn’t been done yet.  Here.

            That’s an ideal, of course. For every time that happens, there would be a hundred programs produced by teenagers showing things being crushed or blown up, or recitations of bad poetry.  Or combinations thereof.  Accompanied by a very active comment board.  Everybody needs to start somewhere.

            So why, with all this, do I still have regular old television?  For the moment, it is convenient.  It is predictable.  Like spending time with an old friend, the basics haven’t changed and you mostly know what you’re getting. For now, from time to time, that’s OK.

11/8/07