Mike Wallace Facebook video: The end of established media? Hardly
Commentary
Leave it to Mashable to blow something out of proportion.
Under the headline “ESPN Who? iPhone and Facebook Nab NFL Star’s First Interview,” Mashable laudes Wallace’s use of an iPhone and Facebook video to record an exclusive interview with Wallace about ending his holdout.
But Wallace’s first interview of the 2012 season didn’t go to ESPN or the hometown Pittsburgh Post-Gazette newspaper. It didn’t air on the news or land on any of a number of high-profile Steelers or NFL blogs. No, Wallace’s first interview after rejoining the squad was an iPhone video Q-and-A (embedded above) with teammate James Harrison, which Harrison posted to his Facebook Timeline on Tuesday morning.
First, I like the idea.
Athletes and their team of agents and marketers often complain that them media takes their comments “out of context.”
Sometimes it’s a legitimate complaint. Other times, it’s BS.
But as fans, we have no way of knowing.
With the massive following that athletes have online and the ease of recording and posting video, other athletes can follow Wallace’s lead and always have the context at hand.
Oh, the comment was taken out of context? Great. Post the context on your Facebook page.
Raw openness and honesty is rarely a bad thing – especially when it, refreshingly, comes from prominent athletes.
And that’s where Wallace’s video falls short.
It’s less about being open and more about being closed.
Clearly, Wallace did this not to provide more insight into the situation, but less. He didn’t want the media asking a lot of questions, which makes the interview pretty terrible.
Conducting an interview requires skill and certainly more than 45 seconds.
This type of home video is refreshing but as a first step.
The real value comes when the athletes combine the personal glimpse with professional content.
I’d much rather see Harrison post an iPhone video of the entire press conference, uncut.
What do you think? Was this video interesting to you?
About Cody Swann
Cody Swann is an entrepreneur, developer, strategist, banged up ex-football walk-on, retired body builder and former journalist born and raised in South Florida. He currently splits his time between his hometown of Stuart, FL and Los Angeles, CA. Cody founded Gunner Technology, a highly sought after digital agency, specializing in helping companies maximize profits through custom web development, technology efficiencies, social media strategy and search engine marketing. As a manager and developer at ESPN for nearly six years, Cody led development and vision for two of ESPN’s most popular online features: Sports Scoreboards and GameCasts. Additionally Cody oversaw all aspects of MyESPN and ESPN’s social network, ESPN Fan Profiles. Cody worked with Technology, Editorial, Sales, Marketing and relevant business stakeholders to mold ESPN’s social media strategy, develop custom applications for it and execute it. Under his direction, ESPN successfully ported large portions of its core product from a proprietary Java stack to an open source Ruby on Rails stack, capable of standing up and performing under the tremendous load world's most popular sports site delivers. Cody began forging his technological knowledge more than 10 years ago, developing and designing websites in college. His development work has included web development, web design, content writing, digital photography and digital video production for award-winning sites like Gainesville.com, GatorSports.com and ESPN.com. He has helped set digital strategy and direction for companies in the New York Times Regional Newspaper group, ESPN, ABC and Disney. He is a recognized expert in web development, social media strategy, search engine optimization, conversion optimization, analytics tracking and business planning. He has worked with large interactive media companies to small and medium sized businesses. Cody motivates and inspires creative teams to deliver superb, polished work under tight deadlines.