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cloud control

SCOTUS could change how you watch TV

But you wouldn't know it; most publications gave this digital-age story analog-era treatment
October 16, 2013 By Sarah Laskow

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There’s nothing like Twitter to remind a reporter that, in the age of BuzzFeed, an exclusive does not necessarily command the attention it once did. Last week, Variety‘s Ted Johnson was the first to report that broadcasting giants like Comcast and Fox were about to try to take their fight with the startup Aereo–which, for a fee, will stream network TV to a customer’s computer–to the Supreme Court. The story was picked up by the Wall Street Journal, and, after the petition was filed, by publications as varied as Reuters, Quartz, and the New York Post. But on Twitter, the day the news broke, the story hit with a thud–two retweets, one favorite. Variety‘s readers were much more excited (

Copyright law defines “publicly” as “any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered.” Does Twitter count? Is watching a TV episode live and online more like watching TV with a group of friends at home? Or more like going out to a bar and watching it with strangers?

The Variety exclusive didn’t explain any of this; it reported the news the old-fashioned way. Of all the coverage I read, Quartz’s did the best job of cluing in readers why they might want to care about the story, calling Aereo “the cloud based content upstart that could upend the TV industry” in its headline and leading with “America’s most powerful broadcasters are trying to shut down an emerging TV recording service.” It’s tempting to shrug: Hey, this is the internet, and the fastest draw wins. But there was time here to do a little bit more work: after Variety broke the news, it took the Wall Street Journal more than 24 hours to publish its (equally dry) story. When breaking news on the internet, speed counts, but so do style and substance.

Disclosure: CJR has received funding from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to cover intellectual-property issues, but the organization has no influence on the content.

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Sarah Laskow is a writer and editor in New York City. Her work has appeared in print and online in Grist, Good, The American Prospect, Salon, The New Republic, and other publications.