Long an innovator in online publishing, Salon.com is becoming increasingly multimedia these days with its very new cool Video Dog vlog. We caught up with Salon’s Kerry “Top Dog” Lauerman, co-editor of the vlog, in his bustling office at the New York bureau. He tells The Beet that Salon’s posting of Stephen Colbert’s routine at the White House Correspondents dinner has driven traffic in a big way: the site has seen the most daily traffic by far since the vlog launched in December.
He sees the Colbert video as a watershed of sorts in the online news biz. Seems to him that the public has altered the news cycle by accessing the speech through YouTube, Salon and other sites after the mainsteam media had dismissed it. The public found the speech was dynamic and appealing while the mainstream took little note basically ignoring Colbert and reporting on the skit with the Bush look-alike.
Has news consumption changed forever with the event? The Beet wonders. The folks over at Bloggers Blog have a great post summing up the hailstorm of blogging activity that has surrounded Colbert’s dinner apperance, including a link to the New York Times article covering all the activity in the blogosphere. Regardless of how this shapes the future of online video, the broad access to online video means that the public can make more choices and lead the mainstream media on what is news – and even occasionally have a real scoop!
BEET UPDATE:
Joan Walsh, editor in chief of Salon, came out with both guns blazing yesterday, taking the mainstream media to task for missing the Colbert “story”. She hammered many outlets including the New York Observer and itsbureau chief Chris Lehmann
The salmon-colored broadsheet bible of the chattering class took umbrige to Joan’s remarks and has issued a Declaration of War against Salon! Yes, them are fighting words. Seems like Colbert’s bombshell speech has been exploding in a bunch of news rooms.
(Salon.com is a client of Plesser Holland, publishers of Beet.TV)
Salon.com, Stephen Colbert, Video Blogging, Kerry Lauerman, Colbert Report, Joan Walsh, New York Observer, Press Corps Dinner
