Media Relations

Salt TV: High-profile TV News Reporters Launch Utah Online News Network

Coming soon to a smartphone, iPad, or computer near you - eleven extremely familiar Utah faces will once again report and deliver news and entertainment via the new Salt TV Network.  They miss their profession and they’re going online to get it back.  Last weekend, I came across their beta site on the Internet. 

Where have they been?  Some had retired, others were downsized during this great recession and revolution in communications.  You know their names, possibly as well as you know those of your children.  KSL (NBC), KTVX (ABC), KUTV (CBS) and KSTU (FOX) once spent millions in branding dollars to showcase their faces, personalities and talents.

One Deep Bench

Here’s the lineup: Dick Nourse, Ruth Todd, Terry Wood, Susan Wood, Randall Carlisle, Kimberly Perkins, Shelley Osterloh, Craig Wirth, Kim Johnson, Reece Stein, Lisa Cline, Jill Atwood, Larry Warren…and even Tom Barberi.  Yes… a radio guy snuck in!  Will they be any competition to their former employers?  Only the future will tell. 

Salt TV Network creator, former KTVX assistant news director Pat Benedict, has a contract with United Press International for national/international news and believes his business model could be franchised in other states.

They Want You To Be Involved

Each reporter will soon have a social page with a welcome video, plus tabs you can click on for bios, their most recent news stories and their personal blogs.  You can fire off your opinions and concerns, communicate via Skype and even post your own video.  Salt TV Network promises exclusive stories, local news that isn’t covered anymore, fresh content every day, along with sports, recreation and features.  And it plans to give time and attention to the issues of every county in the State.

Their Thoughts

“On Salt TV, news and information flows both ways,” says Dick Nourse.  “You won’t have to wait until 10 p.m. to get the news,” adds Ruth Todd.   Randall Carlisle calls Salt TV, “ a bold new adventure in local news.  We are not the same old boring news you watch on your local stations.  With us, you get news from a grass roots level.”  Terry Wood laments the current economic pressure that “has forced broadcast journalism as well as the print media to cut back.  Now journalists are finding they must reinvent the form of the delivery of news.”

Beat Reporting

Some have specific beats. Susan Wood will cover medical news, Carlisle will report on downtown business, development, entertainment and the people and non-profit groups doing good things in the community.  Reece Stein will have a program called Outdoor Family Fun, including hiking, camping, fishing and hunting news.  He encourages all of us to be his field reporters. Ruth Todd plans to focus on education and family issues.  Craig Wirth, Utah’s version of the famous Charles Kuralt, will offer up his  well-loved brand of personal humor.

Then there’s this radio guy...Tom Barberi, the longtime radio Voice of Reason.  Tom will be back with his own program of rants and raves.  “Have an issue with something I said?  Who doesn’t?” he says, encouraging his audience to spar via email, Twitter or Facebook.  “This is a 21st century town hall meeting in which you are front and center.”

Household Names

These individuals were my household brands.  They’ve been in my living room for decades.  Here they are again in a colorful line-up photo.  Great genes, white teeth, clear eyes and not a hair out of place.  I’d like to see them succeed.  I’d like Salt TV to give new opportunities to citizen journalists and other print journalists who’ve lost their jobs.  I hope Salt TV has advertisers and investors who will give it the time needed to establish and strengthen its audience.

Bye Bye TV Consultants

I have but one suggestion.  Relax.  Online you don’t have to be “TV perfect.”   Soften the make-up and the broadcast voices.  No TV consultant will bug you about your wrinkles, gray hair, lack of hair, or sudden extra pounds.  Even better...no more big investments in fine clothes and dry cleaning. Be real. Just have a great time doing what you love.  www.salttvnet.com

Social Media Burnout? New Research.

I burned out badly last spring.  I quit posting to my blog and barely paid attention to all of my social networking.  But my own personal experience is no gauge for the reality today.   The power of social media continues to increase and cannot be denied.   nielsenwire (the same company that brought us the "Nielsen Ratings") has research via Jeff Bulla's Blog.  Take ten important seconds and scan his post to remind yourself to become as educated as possible in social media.  To whet your appetite:

1. 54 percent of the world's Internet users now use or visit Facebook.

and...

2. They spend one out of every four-and-a-half online minutes interacting with blogs and social media.

Newspapers Threaten Legal Action Against Political Blog - More To Come?

Prepare to be legally concerned if you blog about and/or link to online copyrighted material.  A group of Colorado newspaper publishers (including Media News Group, which owns the Denver Post and also the Salt Lake Tribune in Utah) have hired legal help to prevent the use of copyrighted stories.  An online blog receiving a Cease and Desist letter was ColoradoPols.com.  It probably doesn't help that the blog has this top banner ad:

Read all about it here, and advise yourself, your management team or your client about this action.  Revisit your Web sites and blogs.  Past or even current verbal permission from a news outlet may not protect you. 

Use care when you link to news stories.  An argument can be made that if you cut and paste a portion of the article, then link to it, you have given the story away and thus create no need for the reader to visit the newspaper's site.  Given the financial health of news publications today, this may be an escalating trend.

There's a good copyright attorney in Salt Lake.  I'll see if I can get him to weigh in on the matter.  Stay tuned.