video sports reporting

[Harlan Huckleby]

This is a cranky old man post. Move along if you aren't interested.

I've had it up to my eyeballs with all the videos on the sports pages. All they are is some butt-ugly reporter talking into a camera, saying about 500 words that I coulda read in 20 seconds. You gotta sit through a commercial you have no interest in. You get a tiny bit of content for your wait. The fucking videos play automatically - you can't easily avoid them if you want to read something on the page.

The Wisc State Journal - or what remains of it - is the worst. They are almost entirely cheap-ass video clips everywhere, very little writing.

This is not a step forward. Some particular videos - like the Leroy Butler reports - might be worth the time. Most are cheap garbage.

[RashanGary]

I agree. It sucks.

[red]

+2

just let me read the fucking articles myself

[Harlan Huckleby]

The other indignity is that packernews.com has an underpowered video server, so often you just sit there like a fool watching a circle spin around for a minute, hoping for your little morsel of cheese. Bullshit.

[SMBASS]

Agree completely. Another one of my favorite's is a news/sports article that consists entirely of copy and pasted stupid f'n Tweets from someone's Twitter account. I have a feeling there are a lot of dusty $100,000, "Journalism" degrees quietly weeping in people's closets and attics.

[vince]

I agree. If they weren't so poorly done I wouldn't mind, but these Packer beat journalists were meant for print.

[pbmax]

You can run Internet Explorer in no scripts mode.

Chrome and Firefox have extensions that will block video and auto play. Usually you can click on it to get it to play, or put the webpage that you want to load videos on a whitelist.

[Cheesehead Craig]

It's all part of newspapers trying to keep themselves relevant. They want their reporters to not only write articles, but constantly tweet, blog, make video reports, etc. to keep themselves "hip" to the generation that isn't growing up reading the paper and getting their news online.

Wouldn't shock me if the newspaper requires their reporters to be on Tinder and OKCupid to try and reach more people too.

[Patler]

This is a cranky old man post.

That is exactly what I have been told every time I have bitched about this, that I am just a cranky old man. I agree with your complaints 100%. Most of the reporters are absolutely horrible in front of a camera, and the content of their remarks is virtually nothing. My greatest peeve is clicking on a headline that seems interesting, only to discover that it is a video only, with no written presentation at all.

[Patler]

You can run Internet Explorer in no scripts mode.

What does that mean, "no scripts mode"?

Chrome and Firefox have extensions that will block video and auto play. Usually you can click on it to get it to play, or put the webpage that you want to load videos on a whitelist.

Where do I find such extensions or how do I activate that feature?

[pbmax]

Well of course no I can't find word one on Internet Explorer no script. I have a source, but its possible its not around anymore. It used to be an option in the Programs menu just like normal IE.

For Chrome you want to browse its extensions for ones like this:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-blocker-plus/bgdklmmnpfkcmhpkbnocacipoedeefpa

For Firefox you want to look at their Add-ons such as this (this one only does You Tube sourced videos)

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/video-blocker/

I use a Flash blocker for Sarari, Safari calls it an extension, that just puts a grey screen over any flash based media. You click on it to activate the media.

Most are free.

I should warn you, ESPN and one or two others have backup protocols for Flash blocker, even those I get the gray screen telling me the video is waiting, it still plays in the background as HTML5 video. Its far less buggy, but you still need to disable Auto-Play on the site.

[Harlan Huckleby]

It's all part of newspapers trying to keep themselves relevant. They want their reporters to not only write articles, but constantly tweet, blog, make video reports, etc. to keep themselves "hip" to the generation that isn't growing up reading the paper and getting their news online.

There may be a degree of truth to what you say, but I suspect the spreading video cancer is more about squeezing out a profit. Writing a decent article takes hours of research, writing and rewriting. Even with a modest length article the author takes a lot of pride in his/her craft. What are the costs to produce a two minute gab fest where the writers just say what's on their mind? Maybe ten minutes of prep max and a working iphone. A written article is surrounded by ads that are easily ignored. The 30 second (sometimes 1 minute) ads on a video guarantee at least some penetration of the senses of the captive sucker. Maybe that ad revenue has become critical to online survival.

Oh ya, one more insult to my dignity: jsonline (packernews) seems to use a separate, more powerful server for their ads. So you always get the ads. Then the content comes up in the form of the spinning circle. If you get frustrated and refresh the page, a new ad happily plays again, cookies don't remember that you already took your medicine.

Wouldn't shock me if the newspaper requires their reporters to be on Tinder and OKCupid to try and reach more people too.

I'm guessing most of those guys get swiped away pretty quickly on Tinder. They have faces for writing.

[Patler]

If I see an ad pop up that is 30 seconds or longer, I often just leave the page and forget watching the video I wanted to see.
I can live with a 10-15 second ad. Others have told me they do the same. I hope sites and advertisers come to realize that the really short ads do more good than a longer one.

[Patler]

Has anyone else had the experience with NFL.com that multiple ads play before the video? It has happened to me a couple times recently. One ad is bad enough, I will not watch two.

[Zool]

If I see an ad pop up that is 30 seconds or longer, I often just leave the page and forget watching the video I wanted to see.
I can live with a 10-15 second ad. Others have told me they do the same. I hope sites and advertisers come to realize that the really short ads do more good than a longer one.

Unfortunately, by the time you click, the site already has their money. They don't do much in the way of statistics on completed ad views, just clicks.