[10022] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Cybersex on TV
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dave Hughes)
Fri Feb 4 21:16:08 1994
From: dave@oldcolo.com (Dave Hughes)
To: SLW1@cornell.edu (Steve Worona)
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 1994 19:13:57 -0700 (MST)
Cc: com-priv@psi.com (compriv)
In-Reply-To: <9402041712.AA29880@psi.com> from "Steve Worona" at Feb 4, 94 11:57:48 am
>
> Since this list has in the past discussed the "press image" of
> computing and networking, I thought I'd forward the attached, sent to me
> by an old college chum (and forwarded to com-priv *with* his permission
> ;-). Wish the subject of the broadcast weren't so familiar. Sigh.
> Steve
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - + - - - - - - - - - - - -
> Steve Worona <SLW1@cornell.edu> | 308 Day Hall
> ----- attachment:
> Date: Thu, 3 Feb 1994 21:24:00 -0500
> >From: "Gary M. Kaye" <0003920770@mcimail.com>
> To: Steve Worona <SLW1@cornell.edu>
> Subject: Re: Cybersex with feeling
>
> Steve:
> This Sunday night, the Lifetime Magazine program (a production of ABC News
> for Lifetime Cable Television ) will air a piece I produced about
> Cybersex... subtitled "get your kicks on a 4-86...or, "it's not your
> father's computer dating"... 10pm, Sunday, lifetime cable... interested in
> all responses.... favorable or otherwise....
>
> Gary
>
Hey, Steve. Square this message from Kaye with the one HE sent me in
December after I angrily denounced ABC Television for its continued
stress on titillation on the Net, while NBC was trying to do something
serious - while making it interesting enough to put on the regular
network news (Almost 2001) and followed it up with one on Violence.
And CBS at least had the decency to keep its mouth shut.
By the way, Brokaw on NBC news tonight did the netters a favor by
running during the regular news, a warning that hackers are grabbing
ids and passwords off the Internet and you should change your
password!
But you tell me, Steve, whether what I upload below, that Kaye asked
me NOT to distribute until after Jan 8th, whether those were just
crocodile tears, or whether my first charge -that ABC TV sucks when
it comes to coverage of the Net still holds up.
Lemme tell ya, when Congress forces TV manufacturers to sell sets
with the 'V' chip in them, to let the users program-block out
v rated programs, the first thing *I'll* block out is ABC TV in
its *entirety!* And I hope the hell all of ABCs advertisers know
it.
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 16:34 EST
>From: "Gary M. Kaye" <0003920770@mcimail.com>
To: Dave Hughes <dave@oldcolo.com>
Subject: Re: Educating TV about the Net
Dave:
I read with dismay your note about the "Prime Time Live" report on
BBS's and the net. Unfortunately your criticism is largely valid. I am
currently the technology producer for ABC News World News Tonight with Peter
Jennings. Before coming to World News this past April, I did technology
reports for the now defunct Business World Show on ABC News for more than
six years, reports which won the Computer Press Association award for best
television two of the past four years. As near as I can tell I have been
the only broadcast journalist at any of the three major networks working
full time on technology. For most of the rest of the business, technology
is just another subject, worthy of as much expertise as gun control,
Somalia, the Russian Parliament, etc. In fact, ABC has chosen to buy out my
contract, evidently believing that technology coverage does not need a full
time producer.
How do you make the argument that the ability to transmit MRI images
in real time, or data about global weather modeling, or even real time video
conferencing, justifies the roll out of the NII regardless of whether you
can get cybersex across the net as well? Because to the folks who do Prime
Time or Day One, those subjects are not sexxy, in any sense of that word. I
think if you ask around among folks like Bill Gates, or Andy Grove, John
Sculley, Jim Cannavino, or the like you'll find we really have made an
effort to develop technology coverage that enlightens and not mereley
inflames. But the efforts have been limited. It's tough to get World News
to carry two minutes about the Internet when people are starving in winter
locked Bosnia. The fact that changes in technology will have immense impact
on the economy, the workplace, schools, and virtually every institution is
worth a footnote, but not a producer. Gadgets are interesting to look at
but their long term impact seems to get lost. The folks who inhabit the top
of the pyramid have been told that a sea change is coming in the way
information is gathered and distributed, a change that will challenge the
structure and perhaps existence of their organizations. They say they
understand it's coming. They do not begin to comprehend its scope or
impact. After seven years of fighting the battle, I will move on to, in
broad terms, "pursue other opportunities." more likely within technology
than within television.
Getting angry doesn't help. Getting power does. And the coming
revolution in technology will give you the power. And when people can pull
custom newscasts from the net, or can get up to the minute information
filtered by smart agents on their PDA's, the revolution will leave the
honchos of network news divisions wondering why their viewership is in
permanent decline.
If you wish to forward this note to others, I would appreciate that
you not do it until after January 8th, 1994, my departure date from ABC
News.
Gary Kaye
