What
Better Bad News: Political satire anchored by a surly moderator with “issues”. Half true more or less 100% of the time.
Breaking News Broken Here
BetterBadNews (BBN) is the longest running episodic video show produced for the web using professional performers, musicians and actors in a scripted panel discussion format with an upside-down map of North America on the wall.
BBN premiered as a webcast on September 16th, 2003 at Berkeley Community Media and as an episodic video blog at betterbadnews.com on October 20th, 2004 predating YouTube.
The full archive of BetterBadNews episodes is accessible at betterbadnews.com and betterbadnews.blip.tv.
Comedy. Politics. News. Video. Art.
This blog can also be accessed as a podcast. For more info about podcasting, check Wikipedia.
How
Selected text is swiped into teleprompter software enabling a panel of on-camera talking heads to talk intelligently about things they know nothing about.
Video clips are edited using imovie and updated often depending on the color coded threat levels in force at any given time of the year.
In 2004 we modified CoreBlog, a Zope product, to allow it to support video postings. This technology was used until 2007, when we switched to WordPress. The embedded video clips are hosted at blip.tv.
Who
Better Bad News is the personal video blog of George Coates designed and developed by George Coates and Michael Hauser working closely with creative individuals in arts and technology including Dan Corr, Chris Read, Kurt Reinhardt, Mantra Plonsey, Annie Larson, David Winter, Jude Haukom, Karen Ripley, Zulu Spear, David Burian, Betty Halpern Eddy Falconer, Bonnie Hughes, James King and many others including students from the Berkeley Adult School class ; Public Speaking For The Camera, John Parkin, Paul Livingston, Jasper Summer, Ben Ross, and Ana Vasconcellos using facilities and services provided by Berkeley Community Media, Brian Scott, and The Berkeley Arts Festival.
Why
To develop new strategies for surviving the ongoing culture war responsible for the steady and strategic de-funding of independent creative voices in the arts, including small presses, experimental theaters, and alternative media and to provide opportunities for non-commercial voices to be heard in networked media environments.
Where
BetterBadNews PodcastBetterBadNews Podcast on iTunes Music Store
Information about ongoing experiments in video blogging can be found at many locations including.
