Anyone NOT watch at least part of the rescue of the Chilean Miners? I thought so. One more question: When did you watch and how did you watch?
***Update*** Web coverage of rescue among most watched ever.
It was an epic drama and a reminder of Apollo 13. When the crew radioed "Houston, we've had a problem" we tuned in. Well, tuned in when the networks had coverage. Otherwise we had to wait.
Not so with the drama in Chile as it unfolded. We could watch 24/7 as streaming video was fed from inside the mine itself during the rescue via television, or streaming video on our computers or PDA's. Unlike Apollo 13, we watched when and where we wanted to.
Coverage was on-demand.
There was one inportant similarity in the coverage of Chile and Apollo 13 and that was content. How to tell the story. I remember one anchor using a blow torch to demonstrate how the heat shield on the Apollo 13 crew module might react during re-entry. CNN distinguished itself with a most simple thing, a mock-up of the capsule used to bring the miners to the surface. A reporter climbed in and we got to see just how narrow the device was. A picture worth a thousand words. Another smart use of words to tell the story was saying the capsule was just a few inches wider than a basketball hoop. In this case, a word worth a thousand mind pictures.
Whatever the story or message, it's all about content and how you tell the story. Pictures are one thing. Connecting the audience with the pictures is something else. Something lost in all the hub-bub over social media. It's not the pipeline that's important but rather what's inside
Content remains king.
Brian Olson
Conversation Starters LLC
"We start the conversations about you"
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