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CNN Live Event/Special

Primer on Blogging

Aired April 02, 2003 - 03:55   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Here's a word that may be new to you, to some of you at least: blogging. Surfers are riding this latest wave on the World Wide Web amid the winds of war.
CNN's Jeff Greenfield has a primer on blogging.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello, America. This is Edward Merle (ph) speaking from London.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In World War II, it was radio that brought it into our homes. It was television that made Vietnam the living-room war.

BERNARD SHAW, JOURNALIST: The skies over Baghdad have been illuminated.

GREENFIELD: The first Gulf War showed the impact of a worldwide 24-hour news source: CNN.

In this war with Iraq, much of the focus has been on the real- time, live-from-the-front television footage, and with this new tool, the cable news outlets have drawn big numbers. Last week, a total of 10 million viewers tuned into the cable news nets during primetime, 5.7 million more than they were averaging just before the war.

But the real breakthrough in this war has come not just from this screen, but from this screen, where the power of the World Wide Web has come into its own. Millions have turned to the major Web sites for the latest information. Last week, the CNN, MSNBC and Yahoo! sites drew more than 15 million hits.

But an even newer phenomenon are the bloggers.

JEFF JARVIS, BUZZMACHINE.COM: A blogger is anybody who can now with easy tools publish on the Web. And what they publish is links to interesting things and what they have to say about it.

GREENFIELD: From just about anyplace. Here, he's in New York's Bryan Park (ph). And at any time of the day or night Jarvis can surf the Web, and when he finds an interesting item, he can throw it onto his Web site almost instantly.

(on camera): So how do you do this?

JARVIS: It's so easy even we old guys can do it. GREENFIELD: Oh.

JARVIS: You're just surfing like anyone else is surfing.

Let's see, the "Guardian" of London, Hans Blix stepping down today. They've done an interview with Blix. I'm looking for quotes from Blix. Oh, here we go. If I want to blog that, I can copy that quote, the quote is there. Now, the only thing I have to do now is I have put in a link, so that people can find the story.

GREENFIELD (voice-over): And there's the revolution. If journalist Andrew Sullivan (ph) wants to slam the BBC for biased coverage, he'll link his opinion to the BBC site, so you can read the transcript for yourself.

Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds (ph), whose InstaPundit Web site has become one of the most visited, runs an electronic town hall. And here again, if he or a reader wants to praise or damn a viewpoint, you get to see exactly what they're talking about. And bloggers' sources can range from TV broadcasts to newspapers from one end of the world to the other.

JARVIS: And they can judge for themselves, which is key. They are judging for themselves. This gives that power on both ends, reader and publisher, to the people.

GREENFIELD: Blogging is a work-in-progress. Nobody is making any money off of this yet, and audiences are still very small. But, says Jeff Jarvis:

JARVIS: This is just the beginning stage. I've been playing with doing video on blogs and trying to replace you for a living.

GREENFIELD (on camera): Back off, Jeff.

JARVIS: I'm Jeff...

GREENFIELD: ... Greenfield, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.






Aired April 2, 2003 - 03:55   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Here's a word that may be new to you, to some of you at least: blogging. Surfers are riding this latest wave on the World Wide Web amid the winds of war.
CNN's Jeff Greenfield has a primer on blogging.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello, America. This is Edward Merle (ph) speaking from London.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In World War II, it was radio that brought it into our homes. It was television that made Vietnam the living-room war.

BERNARD SHAW, JOURNALIST: The skies over Baghdad have been illuminated.

GREENFIELD: The first Gulf War showed the impact of a worldwide 24-hour news source: CNN.

In this war with Iraq, much of the focus has been on the real- time, live-from-the-front television footage, and with this new tool, the cable news outlets have drawn big numbers. Last week, a total of 10 million viewers tuned into the cable news nets during primetime, 5.7 million more than they were averaging just before the war.

But the real breakthrough in this war has come not just from this screen, but from this screen, where the power of the World Wide Web has come into its own. Millions have turned to the major Web sites for the latest information. Last week, the CNN, MSNBC and Yahoo! sites drew more than 15 million hits.

But an even newer phenomenon are the bloggers.

JEFF JARVIS, BUZZMACHINE.COM: A blogger is anybody who can now with easy tools publish on the Web. And what they publish is links to interesting things and what they have to say about it.

GREENFIELD: From just about anyplace. Here, he's in New York's Bryan Park (ph). And at any time of the day or night Jarvis can surf the Web, and when he finds an interesting item, he can throw it onto his Web site almost instantly.

(on camera): So how do you do this?

JARVIS: It's so easy even we old guys can do it. GREENFIELD: Oh.

JARVIS: You're just surfing like anyone else is surfing.

Let's see, the "Guardian" of London, Hans Blix stepping down today. They've done an interview with Blix. I'm looking for quotes from Blix. Oh, here we go. If I want to blog that, I can copy that quote, the quote is there. Now, the only thing I have to do now is I have put in a link, so that people can find the story.

GREENFIELD (voice-over): And there's the revolution. If journalist Andrew Sullivan (ph) wants to slam the BBC for biased coverage, he'll link his opinion to the BBC site, so you can read the transcript for yourself.

Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds (ph), whose InstaPundit Web site has become one of the most visited, runs an electronic town hall. And here again, if he or a reader wants to praise or damn a viewpoint, you get to see exactly what they're talking about. And bloggers' sources can range from TV broadcasts to newspapers from one end of the world to the other.

JARVIS: And they can judge for themselves, which is key. They are judging for themselves. This gives that power on both ends, reader and publisher, to the people.

GREENFIELD: Blogging is a work-in-progress. Nobody is making any money off of this yet, and audiences are still very small. But, says Jeff Jarvis:

JARVIS: This is just the beginning stage. I've been playing with doing video on blogs and trying to replace you for a living.

GREENFIELD (on camera): Back off, Jeff.

JARVIS: I'm Jeff...

GREENFIELD: ... Greenfield, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.