The gimmick that the networks wore out was the guy standing in front of a huge screen clicking icons as if it were a computer. Everyone was doing it, and to me it got annoying after a while. I could almost see the brain-storming session with some spiky-messed-up-hair guy with trendy glasses saying it would make them look in touch with the younger demos.
The Skype picture did look really lo-tech, but hey, I am using Skype for phone patch audio sessions now, so what can I say?
To me, the one constant irritant for TV news is delay. Back in the stone age, when we were still sending guys up in tin cans working on getting to the moon, NY could ask Washington a question and get an answer, via microwave, and it looked like a conversation. Pat Lane reminds me that when they cut from one city to another there would be a frame of roll because the sync would be off, but at least there seemed to be conversational continuity. I realize why there is delay while we wait for a question in NY to go up to a satellite, come down to Washington, be answered up to the satellite, down to NY, then out to my TV. I realize that the signal quality is better, and the process is more cost effective. But when I hear a question asked and watch the answerer sit there... two, three, then answer, it still makes me uneasy. Could be all those years in radio where dead air is death. Could be my attention span is just too short.
