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CNN's Video Irritates Me
CNN has the nasty habit of posting a lot of video. If you look at the image, all those news stories with the little camera next to them are video clips. (And the t-shirt icon means they’re…t-shirts. Seriously.)
I hate this. It’s frustrating. Video on a news site blows.
I am not begrudging the YouTubes and Hulus of the world, but with those sites, I want and expect to see video. With CNN, I’m looking for news. Quickly.
With video, I have to:
- Wait for it to load
- Turn on my speakers (and irritate the people around me)
- Sit through an ad
- Wait for whomever is speaking to get around to their point
Text is good. Text is fast. The inverted pyramid style has been around for years, and it works. I can read the first couple of paragraphs and get the gist of what the story is about.
In a lot of ways, the difference between text and video is like the differences between email and phone, and I still like text for the same reasons. Rich media is cool, but text will never die.
When I see a headline on CNN that I want to read and it has a little camera next to it, I often get irritated enough to go to Google News, search for some terms, and see if anyone has written anything about it. I do that 2-3 times a week.
Rant over.
Comments
I'm glad I'm not the only one!
Yep. The main reason I switched from CNN to Google News is that I realized it was taking me 20-30 minutes to sit through video news that could be summarized, probably with more detail, in 5 minutes.
At least they put the icon on the stories. On the rare occasions I do visit CNN, my brain just parses those as "don't bother clicking; if interested, type keywords into Google News."
Use enounce at enounce.com U can listen to the ads at 3 times the speed and the news at 2 times the speed. Simple.
I just left cnn.com to see what was going on here for this very reason.
I just left cnn.com to see what was going on here for this very reason.
Then I love CNN's video!
Ditto. Even down to the part about going to Google news. I thought quite a while back, CNN used to provide a text link whenever they had a video. You had a choice. Read or watch.
The very reason I LIKE cnn is that they give you the option of video or text. When I'm so inclined to view a news video (rarely) I click on the video icon to go straight there or I click the link and then when I decide to watch the video, I hit the video tab.
I think the tabs are key, since it allows the separation of the rich media and the text.
The very reason I LIKE cnn is that they give you the option of video or text. When I'm so inclined to view a news video (rarely) I click on the video icon to go straight there or I click the link and then when I decide to watch the video, I hit the video tab.
No, if it has a video icon, the text link goes to video only. I just went over and confirmed this -- when there's one link and the icon, both link to the same place, to the video.
If they give you the option, there's a text link, then a pipe, then the word "Video," and you can click either.
This does not happen frequently.
Why would anyone go to their website to watch video? If I wanted to watch CNN video, I would turn on the TV.
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