This live-stream walkabout is, in a lot of ways, about the transition of media, all media (and the Post Office), from print and broadcast TV, to Internet digital. Hence the photo at the top showing Mainstream Media trucks with their satellite antennas. Using nothing but a cell-phone and a selfie-stick I can now broadcast a digital stream with better video quality than the satellite trucks could deliver back in 2005. (And my network has a worldwide footprint.)
I assume for technical reasons, the MSM will still use big vehicles with specialty streaming antennas, but with 5g rolling out and even higher bandwidth in the works after that, I also assume it’s only a matter of time until OTA broadcasting goes away altogether. This does cause some ambivalence though, because interactive streaming makes it possible for big brother to track and monitor what you watch on TV where the traditional over-the-air broadcasting doesn’t.
The video includes a lot of other interesting information about events and landmarks in Huntsville past, present and future. Eric Rudolph isn’t the focus per se, it’s just that the photograph from that event perfectly illustrates the still changing media landscape. In Huntsville, the photo also illustrates growth in downtown since new multi-story mixed use shops, offices and apartments now fill the downtown landscape and the parking lot in the foreground. This picture couldn’t be taken today.
The walkabout begins at the Federal Courthouse and includes my musings on Eric Rudolph, related childhood experiences, a presidential appearance and ends at the old Huntsville Times building where somebody’s elevator doesn’t quite reach the top.
©2022 – Jim Casey
