Everything is digital

Yet another plug for the ever awesome Snowmail from Channel Four news here in the UK. Here’s some interesting news on the news that I got last week from Kylie Morris:

I’m going to let you into a small secret today, but an interesting one. This is a milestone in modern television news production. We have moved into half a new newsroom with completely new technology. There’s no paper, there’s no tangible video or film. Everything is digital. And those of us who were mad in the analogue age are now completely crazy in the digital follow-up.

Perhaps I should have made that a singular observation. The potential is fantastic - instant everything and instantly edited everything (perhaps I exaggerate a little). But the human capacity to keep up with it all and to ensure that the journalism does too - that is the real issue. You won’t notice any difference - well, not unless the entire thing blows up and blue smoke starts coming out of my ears. But we certainly hope that we will be able to provide you with an even better Channel 4 News than heretofore. The whole process of change will not be completed until well into April.

This is very cool. Keeping abreast of technology if you’re old media is certainly essential, but so far only The Guardian seem to really grasp what’s going on. This is a great move for Ch4 and I hope their websites now get the chance to step up a notch too.

And just to prove it’s not all high tech sci fi over there, John Snow signed off with this just a few days ago:

Oh, and by the way, if you can’t catch us at seven, why don’t you check your Freeview menu and find Channel 4 Plus One, because we pitch up there at eight. And you could have the soggy Yorkshire pud and the overdone roast beef on your knee, watching it.

And speaking of soggy Yorkshire pudding I’m finding the BBC’s iPlayer horribly underdone: