TPMtv: Down the Tubes
Today is a special day for Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK). Not only is it his first 24 hours in ignomy as the first sitting senator in over 20 years to be indicted on federal charges, it's also the one-year anniversary of the FBI raid on his Alaska home ...
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Comments (21)
Video is not working. It runs only for first 3 seconds and asks if I wanted to repeat it or move on to more videos.
July 30, 2008 4:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's working now. Not sure what was wrong. Thanks if you fixed it.
July 30, 2008 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Entertonement.com (where, full disclosure, I work) has audio of the "series of tubes" speech you can use as your ringtone.
July 30, 2008 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is it just me, or is Kate Klonick seriously adorable? Oh yeah, great report, too.
July 31, 2008 4:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Heh, I was just thinking that. She's a real cutie.
July 31, 2008 7:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
easy there, guys.
July 31, 2008 9:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh no. I was afraid of this being a result of turning a great blog/news site into something like "TV."
How long will it be till TPM has a sexy weathergirl?
July 31, 2008 10:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
This was a good piece even with the audio turned off. So to speak.
July 31, 2008 11:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Title for this piece should be
Beauty and the Beast
and the beauty looks so intelligent!
It's a sad story though since the beast might still keep his Senate seat.
July 31, 2008 12:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
When I first started reading Josh's stuff, he had a picture up with him unshaven, and his glasses sliding down his nose; He looked like he just got out of bed. While KK is certainly attractive, in comparison, she's Helen of Troy!
July 31, 2008 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
In all seriousness, the trend toward the "Huffpo-ization" of TPM is a disturbing one.
How long will it be until we have Jessica Alba as a celebrity blogger?
Part of the genuine appeal of blogging is its detached, rationale nature - it's just (earnest) reading and (earnest) typing.
Making "TV" and celebrity a part of TPM is bound to invite all the vices of TV - it's obsession with surface appearance and surface meaning and getting to sit with the cool kids at the cool kids table.
I'm warning you Josh - what makes TPM 'celebrity' worthy is what will ruin it's original appeal.
Though I think the cut up clips are brilliant, they could MORE easily be introduced with a voice over or text.
The cuts and edits during the 'anchor' spots come off as amateurish - I guess if that's 'improved' by having a hairsprayed TV hunk/hottie read the story off of a prompter, it would be even worse though.
July 31, 2008 1:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow, does it make you that uncomfortable? It gives the site an additional medium to quickly get several points across to the reader/audience. If you just want audio from the clips without having to look at someone talking, I suggest you just listen to it...and not watch it. Amazing idea, isn't it?
July 31, 2008 1:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've been around TPM since there was just a photo of Josh's nostrils and a bunch of posts.
The point is that making TPM a splashy, sassy Television 3.0 has the very real effect of taking away the detached rationality of TPM and blogging in general.
It could very well dumb it down and make it obsessed with being in the cool kids club - so you would take the chummy relationship between elites and the press (something that blogs once railed against) and just replicate it on a blog.
July 31, 2008 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah but my point is don't sweat the way the information is presented, sweat the content. Also, there's nothing elite or flashy about making a video and uploading it to the internet.
July 31, 2008 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Glad you've been reading the site for so long, but very much resent that you've chosen my TPMTV reporting -- of all the TPMTV that goes on this site and has gone on for years -- to highlight as the "HuffPo-ization" of TPM.
Not only is it fundamentally misogynist to suggest that I'm "one more step" towards a "sexy weathergirl," it's ridiculously hyperbolic to call it some kind of descent into "making TV and celebrity" a part of TPM.
So buddy, in your mind are only men capable of "earnest reading and earnest typing?" Why does my presence suddenly make TPMTV "splashy and sassy?" Why no long rant on any of Josh's TPMTV posts?
My suspicions? You're an unadulterated chauvinist.
How's that for earnest?
July 31, 2008 4:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't take it personally Kate. I meant the whole process of making a blog more like "TV" could very likely inculcate all of TV's vices.
Does God give with both hands? Of course - that's not your fault.
This cuts all ways sexually too. What about that momentous occasion a few years ago when a 'famous' anonymous blogger was revealed to be a (kinda homely) woman? I've got to look up the picture on the BAGnewsnotes.com archive. It's there somewhere. The disembodied nature of the web gave this person a chance to make arguments without being ignored out of hand.
I was wary about the notion of blog 'TV' when Josh was contemplating this move because when arguments are detached from the relative comeliness or hunkiness of presenters, then you have an almost Platonic like system where people CAN ONLY be take at their words and arguments.
That was the glory of blogging - LITERALLY disembodied arguments. It appears that's moving quickly into the past tense. Too bad.
My problem with Huffpo - besides it's overweaning luridness - is Huff's obsession with starf***ing. I mean thank God Jamie Lee Curtis has a platform to voice her concerns. Huff really fixed the problem of celebrities who can't express themselves in a public forum.
Here's hoping (or hoping against hope) that TPM won't be ruined by its own success or TV-ization.
July 31, 2008 4:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Looked it up. The blogger was "Digby" and she was 'unvieled' at a take back America conference in June 2007.
You can quickly find her picture by going to BAGNewsnotes and looking at the "Blogging in Focus" archive.
July 31, 2008 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
For the record, I think Kate did a fine job reporting this segment. I'd be lying if I said she isn't attractive, but that's beside the point.
Well done, Kate. I hope we'll be seeing -- and reading -- more from you in the future.
August 1, 2008 11:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please stop wasting that green screen by showing the green screen. From the home office in Wahoo, Nebraska, here are the top ten better places for TPMtv:
10. In front of the White House
9. In front of the Capitol
8. TPM World Headquarters (real)
7. TPM World Headquarters (fake - with gleaming huge media center)
6. The White House briefing room
5. Times Square
4. Red Square
3. Girdwood, Alaska
2. The Daily Show set
1. The Moon
July 31, 2008 3:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's such a good point. You really never need to see a green screen. It's sort of like announcing: "We COULD show something really cool, or ironic, or shocking, or hilarious behind this person...but we're too lazy." When Josh used to just make announcements from inside the TPM offices, I always thought it had a shabby chic-ness. It felt so offhand. With the green screen it's as if they went halfway toward making it interesting, but then couldn't be bothered.
July 31, 2008 5:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Josh Marshall already tried broadcasting from spots around New York City. As you can imagine, there were a few interruptions.
I guess it's true "the medium is the message" at least for this thread.
Good work Kate Klonick!
July 31, 2008 7:14 PM | Reply | Permalink