Weighing Anchor

PC Computing, March 2000
by Thomas Claburn

On the Net, Sam Donaldson laments, legitimate journalists share the stage with crackpots. "Anybody can say anything. They can say that TWA Flight 800 was shot down by a submarine missile from the U.S. Navy. You name it." Now Sam's there too—since September 27, 1999, he's been hosting the Web newscast SamDonaldson@ ABCNEWS.com thrice weekly. Confined in a tiny RealNetworks video window, his good-natured pugilism nonetheless comes through in his reports. "I think [our Webcast] probably produces a more intimate feeling with the audience [than TV reports from the White House]," he says. Yet if technology has brought Sam closer to his viewers, it also allows a self - imposed ignorance. "If you come home in the future and there is this huge menu [of news] but you are interested in JonBenet Ramsey and the sports scores and the weather, you don't have to click on East Timor." But the so-called old media still has some life left. "We all pay lip service to the fact that [TV] will be interactive. Oh, we will have chat tabs and we will have ballot questions and we will have quizzes. But let's face it, if you want to watch those great pieces on 60 Minutes or 20/20, why would you want to interact?" Bristling at media critic James Fallows's gibe that his situation echoes that of a silent-era film star confronted with the talkies, Sam replies, "Rather than just pontificate that those of us who are of a certain age couldn't possibly be with it: Take a look, take a look!" We're looking.