All the TV News Since 2009, Now Available At the Internet Archive

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

All the TV News Since 2009, Now Available At the Internet Archive

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday September 19, 2012 @07:15AM from the just-be-careful-not-to-accidentally-search-for-cnn dept.

6 writes with news that the Internet Archive has launched an online archive of TV news content. According to the NY Times, it will "include every morsel of news produced in the last three years by 20 different channels, encompassing more than 1,000 news series that have generated more than 350,000 separate programs devoted to news." In addition to preserving the works of humankind, the archive is for helping citizens "better understand the issues and candidates in the 2012 U.S. elections by allowing them to search closed captioning transcripts to borrow relevant television news programs."

70 comments

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

This Will Help Political Trolls Everywhere by ilikenwf · 2012-09-19 07:19 · Score: 2

CNN and Fox News, etc will be all over this one - lots of nice, juicy (sometimes out of context) quotes and clips to use in their attacks toward the opponents of their biases...
1. Re:This Will Help Political Trolls Everywhere by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-19 07:25 · Score: 1
  
  You think the networks don't already maintain their own archives?
  Hell, if the Daily Show can do it...
2. Re:This Will Help Political Trolls Everywhere by ichthus · 2012-09-19 07:32 · Score: 2
  
  With searchable transcripts, all one will have to do is search out the video in it's entirety to get full context and debunk any deceit through selective editing. More information is usually a good thing.
  
  --
  sig: sauer
3. Re:This Will Help Political Trolls Everywhere by ichthus · 2012-09-19 07:34 · Score: 2
  
  Dammit. "Its entirety", not "It's".
  
  --
  sig: sauer
4. Re:This Will Help Political Trolls Everywhere by Bigby · 2012-09-19 07:37 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I hope they make everyone look so bad that the public just gives up on the "lesser of two evils" method of voting.
5. Re:This Will Help Political Trolls Everywhere by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-19 07:37 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Hey, stop with the selective editing already!
6. Re:This Will Help Political Trolls Everywhere by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-19 07:38 · Score: 1
  
  Are you kidding? The politicians on the right flip flop so much on every possible issue that the last thing in the world any of those networks wants is a public with a memory that goes back farther than a week. For proof of this, see The Daily Show, which often has hilarious segments featuring talking heads arguing with their past selves, each taking a diametrically opposite position on an issue. And they manage that trick using just an intern and a video tape machine. Imagine what a searchable archive of talking head drivel will do for them.
7. Re:This Will Help Political Trolls Everywhere by CanHasDIY · 2012-09-19 07:48 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Are you kidding? The politicians on the right flip flop so much on every possible issue that the last thing in the world any of those networks wants is a public with a memory that goes back farther than a week.
  Yea, thank goodness the politicians on the left never do that stuff, right?
  
  Obama: "Mine will be the most transparent administration in history."
  Caveat: I think they're all greedy, self-absorbed douche-bags. No bias.
  
  --
  An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
8. Re:This Will Help Political Trolls Everywhere by Hentes · 2012-09-19 07:55 · Score: 1
  
  Still better than politicians saying one thing today and the complete opposite tomorrow, relying on the public having a very short term memory.
9. Re:This Will Help Political Trolls Everywhere by Beorytis · 2012-09-19 08:27 · Score: 2
  
  A nice thought, but the debunking never seems to attract the attention that the bunk does.
10. Re:This Will Help Political Trolls Everywhere by flimflammer · 2012-09-19 08:46 · Score: 1
  
  It's true that is all it would take for someone interested in finding out, but what is page 1 bunk always ends up being page 7 when debunked. People tend to remember the initial statement and not the corrections.
11. Re:This Will Help Political Trolls Everywhere by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2012-09-19 09:04 · Score: 2
  
  Obama: "Mine will be the most transparent administration in history."
  I'm pretty sure that is a misquote since googling it only turns up anti-obama sites. That's poor form if you want to show something actually hypocritical and not just more fauxbama stuff.
  Best I can make out, it refers to his promise to increase access to government records by putting lots of stuff into an internet database. I remember when it went online as the Open Government Initiative. You will see the word "Transparency" is the first ont he sub-heading of that page.
  If you want to get a more grounded list of broken promises, try the Obameter. But, I want to point out that broken campaign promises aren't quite the same thing as "flip-flopping" which, in the GP's context of daily show clips, refers to taking up contradictory positions in public statements -- campaign promises are goals that may not be achieved due to circumstances beyond the candidate's control, flip-flops are 100% willful decisions to simply say different things.
  
  --
  When information is power, privacy is freedom.
12. Re:This Will Help Political Trolls Everywhere by CanHasDIY · 2012-09-19 09:14 · Score: 0
  
  Obama: "Mine will be the most transparent administration in history."
  I'm pretty sure that is a misquote since googling it only turns up anti-obama sites. That's poor form if you want to show something actually hypocritical and not just more fauxbama stuff.
  From whitehouse.gov:
  
  My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.
  
  You should probably do a little more research yourself, before making such accusations.
  
  BTW, 5 seconds and one Google search is all it took to find the above quote.
  
  --
  An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
13. Re:This Will Help Political Trolls Everywhere by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2012-09-19 09:21 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Still a misquote - you might call it a summarization, but leaving out the part about "establish a system" completely changes the meaning because what you actually found on the whitehouse website narrowly refers to the OGI.
  
  --
  When information is power, privacy is freedom.
14. Re:This Will Help Political Trolls Everywhere by CanHasDIY · 2012-09-19 09:35 · Score: 0
  
  Whatever happened to "Hey, dude, guess you're right, thanks for clarifying?"
  
  Nevermind; the point is, Obama has claimed that he intends to have a very open and transparent government, yet his administration has prosecuted orders of magnitude more whistleblowers than every previous administration combined. Regardless of how he stated his intent, it's glaringly obvious he has no intention of making good on transparency.
  
  --
  An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
15. Re:This Will Help Political Trolls Everywhere by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2012-09-19 09:46 · Score: 1
  
  Whatever happened to "Hey, dude, guess you're right, thanks for clarifying?"
  Because you are wrong. The page you linked to is all about the OGI - it ends with him specificlly directing the CTO and the OMB to create the OGI, and he kept that promise. You can't accuse the guy of flip-flopping on a promise he actually kept.
  The only reason you think the crappy handling of the whistleblowers is a flip-flop is because you bought into the overly broad scope of the original misquote which, given the use on all the anti-obama websites, was probably designed specificly to mislead like that.
  
  --
  When information is power, privacy is freedom.
16. Re:This Will Help Political Trolls Everywhere by CanHasDIY · 2012-09-19 10:02 · Score: 1
  
  Whatever happened to "Hey, dude, guess you're right, thanks for clarifying?"
  Because you are wrong. The page you linked to is all about the OGI - it ends with him specificlly directing the CTO and the OMB to create the OGI, and he kept that promise. You can't accuse the guy of flip-flopping on a promise he actually kept.
  The only reason you think the crappy handling of the whistleblowers is a flip-flop is because you bought into the overly broad scope of the original misquote which, given the use on all the anti-obama websites, was probably designed specificly to mislead like that.
  Whatever you've got to tell yourself to sleep at night, bro, I really don't give a rat's ass whether you acknowledge reality or not.
  
  --
  An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
17. Re:This Will Help Political Trolls Everywhere by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2012-09-19 10:06 · Score: 1
  
  Ah, as I suspected you were just defending your ego, not your argument.
  
  --
  When information is power, privacy is freedom.
18. Re:This Will Help Political Trolls Everywhere by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-19 10:40 · Score: 0
  
  You are a drone.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5t8GdxFYBU
  QUOTE OBAMA
  I'll make our government open and transparent
  END QUOTE
  More (paraphrased):
  Public Will Have 5 Days To Look At Every Bill That Lands On My Desk
  LIES, LIES, LIES. Just look there’s plenty more.
  You stupid drone.
19. Re:This Will Help Political Trolls Everywhere by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-19 11:18 · Score: 0
  
  QUOTE OBAMA
  I'll make our government open and transparent
  END QUOTE
  How do you measure that? It is impossible to have 100% "open and transparent" government - where do you draw the line? Cameras on all federal employees live streaming to the web 24x7? A generic promise like that needs to be put in the context of acutal specifics in order to have something to measure it against.
  
  Public Will Have 5 Days To Look At Every Bill That Lands On My Desk
  Now that one does have specifics and it seems like he's been half-assing it, some bills have been signed quicker than 5 days. But most actually have had 5 or more days of sitting on the whitehouse blog before he signs them.
20. Re:This Will Help Political Trolls Everywhere by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-19 13:08 · Score: 0
  
  You stupid drone.
  If he's a drone why did he link to a list of 100 or so of Obama's broken campaign promises?
What an incredible waste of data! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-19 07:19 · Score: 1

The news is seldom even accurate. Why would anyone care more about two year old lies than current lies?
All the news since 2009!? by TaoPhoenix · 2012-09-19 07:19 · Score: 3, Insightful

How did they manage the copyright clearance for THAT!?

--
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
1. Re:All the news since 2009!? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-19 07:26 · Score: 0
  
  by agreeing to not to pursue posting anything from before 2009 lol
2. Re:All the news since 2009!? by pipeep · 2012-09-19 07:30 · Score: 1
  
  It's not all streaming. They'll mail you a DVD if you want to watch the content. The only thing they stream are 30 second clips (which falls under fair-use), so that you can make sure you have the right video.
3. Re:All the news since 2009!? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-19 07:39 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Actually US Broadcast news has special copyright exemptions http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/17/1/108
4. Re:All the news since 2009!? by RocketAcademy · 2012-09-19 07:41 · Score: 2
  
  Yes, and it' $50 to borrow a clip for 30 days. The service is based on the Vanderbilt Television Archive, which has been providing a similar service since 1968. (They didn't start on the Internet, obviously.) This is a service that will be of use primarily to the news media and PR professionals. It isn't "all the TV news," either, by a long shot. I just tried searching for a small company that's made national news several times and got zero hits.
5. Re:All the news since 2009!? by TubeSteak · 2012-09-19 07:42 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  The act of copying all this news material is protected under a federal copyright agreement signed in 1976. That was in reaction to a challenge to a news assembly project started by Vanderbilt University in 1968.
  
  --
  [Fuck Beta]
  o0t!
6. Re:All the news since 2009!? by Bigby · 2012-09-19 09:03 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe the attach advertising and the originator gets a cut of the revenue. After all, it is just old news. Why not make some more money off of it.
  Then they can enforce their copyright on postings to YouTube.
  Profit!
ALL = American? by diodeus · 2012-09-19 07:20 · Score: 5, Insightful

I guess "All the news" need not contain any foreign sources. Disappointing.
1. Re:ALL = American? by ArsonSmith · 2012-09-19 07:57 · Score: 1
  
  They should have qualified that with "All important news." Us Americans just keep pissing other people off when we don't acknowledge their existence no matter how unimportant they are. On behalf of America I would like to apologize to Canada for ignoring you again.
  
  --
  Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
2. Re:ALL = American? by flimflammer · 2012-09-19 08:48 · Score: 2
  
  Considering the apparent purpose for this, having foreign news seems like it would be a pointless addition.
3. Re:ALL = American? by funwithBSD · 2012-09-19 12:05 · Score: 2
  
  All the news by 20 agencies, not every agency everywhere.
  That is the goal, but I could see how some agencies in other countries might not be willing or able to provide the material.
  The BBC America seems to be part of the import.
  
  --
  Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
4. Re:ALL = American? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-19 12:43 · Score: 0
  
  Speak for yourself.
5. Re:ALL = American? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-19 19:43 · Score: 0
  
  "Us Americans just keep pissing other people off when we don't acknowledge their existence..."
  Nah, just making fools of yourself.
6. Re:ALL = American? by jhauser14905 · 2012-09-20 03:45 · Score: 1
  
  settle down, folks!
  the reason why only american news sources were included in this first roll out is because the search function relies on indexing the closed captioning text.
  no cc == no text == not indexed == not included in search results.
  they're working on several different non-trivial approaches for broadcasts without closed captioning...
Media Bias by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-19 07:25 · Score: 0

All propaganda, all the time.
1984 is here.
Good for research by sometext · 2012-09-19 07:25 · Score: 1

This could help very interesting research regarding how often certain topics are discussed, or certain buzzwords are used. It's pretty exciting I think.
1. Re:Good for research by jeffmeden · 2012-09-19 07:28 · Score: 2
  
  This could help very interesting research regarding how often certain topics are discussed, or certain buzzwords are used. It's pretty exciting I think.
  Given how many news programs are aired live and CC subs are done in realtime, i bet the research is going to be more limited than you think unless you want to start by analyzing frequently misspelled words.
2. Re:Good for research by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-19 07:36 · Score: 1
  
  Well we all know that if it wasn't important enough for the US news it didn't happen. Kind of like the Paralympics.
3. Re:Good for research by vlm · 2012-09-19 07:44 · Score: 2
  
  This could help very interesting research regarding how often certain topics are discussed, or certain buzzwords are used. It's pretty exciting I think.
  I want to run a Fourier analysis on the human interest stories. I've always been told the tired old "LSD is regaining popularity" has a wavelength around 36 months, roughly every 3 years, blah blah blah.
  Also fun to track stories about fads. Remember when every Prius on the road was spontaneously accelerating on the highway?
  Another truly weird analysis project would be analyzing coughs and colds, like a graph of each time a newscaster sneezed. I bet that analysis could be fully automated and over a long term with nation wide collection of local news (which, admittedly, this is not) would provide a pretty interesting graph of the spread of illnesses.
  
  --
  "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
4. Re:Good for research by vlm · 2012-09-19 07:46 · Score: 1
  
  Given how many news programs are aired live and CC subs are done in realtime, i bet the research is going to be more limited than you think unless you want to start by analyzing frequently misspelled words.
  That could be a fun data analysis project in itself. If only the dataset went back 2 or 3 more years, it would be interesting to chart how long it took to get captioners to properly spell Barack Obama, or any unusual name.
  
  --
  "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
5. Re:Good for research by Anubis+IV · 2012-09-19 07:50 · Score: 1
  
  Indeed. I could see something like Google Ngram Viewer being developed for going through this sort of thing for all sorts of interesting purposes, ranging from linguistics research and the etymology of idiomatic sayings to scripting more accurate period dramas. It could also be used to produce something along the lines of Google Trends, letting people see what the media is focusing on at any particular time. Moreover, it would form an interesting contrast if you had a timeline showing the rise and fall of various topics in the media alongside the rise and fall of those same topics in Google Trends, particularly if you broke it up by network, that way you could start to quantify some correlation between an individual network's coverage and a change in the amount of interest demonstrated by the public.
  There's all sorts of really neat ideas that could come out of a dataset like this, many that would likely be much, much more creative than the ones I've said here.
6. Re:Good for research by Anubis+IV · 2012-09-19 08:07 · Score: 1
  
  You'll rarely catch them coughing or sneezing, since the various cuts and breaks (not to mention "cough buttons") are specifically designed to help them avoid broadcasting those over the air. An anchor person isn't actually on screen for very long at a time, even during breaking coverage or major news, so they have plenty of opportunities to clear their throat, blow their nose, or grab something to drink as the cameras are on a reporter in the field, an expert in the studio, a video clip shot earlier in the day, their co-anchor, or a commercial break.
  That said, I wish it could be done, since I do agree that it would be quite interesting.
7. Re:Good for research by toadlife · 2012-09-19 08:22 · Score: 1
  
  or certain buzzwords are used
  If I had a nickle for every time I've heard a talking head say one the following three phrases...
  "The reality is..." -- #1 by the along shot
  "When all is said and done..."
  "At the end of the day..." ..I'd have more money than Mitt Romney's campaign financiers.
  
  --
  I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
Fascinating by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-19 07:41 · Score: 0

Is there anything less useful than old news?
1. Re:Fascinating by preaction · 2012-09-19 07:46 · Score: 1
  
  History textbooks</sarcasm>
2. Re:Fascinating by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-19 10:47 · Score: 0
  
  Those who do not know their history are condemned to repeat it. Google it.
  Then learn some history.
Summary by jellomizer · 2012-09-19 07:46 · Score: 1

Lets show the evil or blundering ways of our opposing political party.

--
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Serious question by MrEricSir · 2012-09-19 07:56 · Score: 1

Where does The Daily Show get their news archives? Sometimes they pull up clips that are fairly old, so it's hard to believe they have a bunch of Tivos running in a back room.

--
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
1. Re:Serious question by ottothecow · 2012-09-19 09:43 · Score: 1
  
  I know they spend a lot of time searching Lexis Nexis TV & Radio news transcripts. I'm not sure if that give you the actual clip or just a reference. But if you are willing to pay for archival footage, I think you can get that kind of stuff fairly easily as long as you can tell them "I want these 14 seconds that aired at 12:34 on 8/12/08". Not something that is very friendly to the inexperienced researcher (or the person who doesn't want to pay for lexisnexis.
  
  --
  Bottles.
2. Re:Serious question by Nirvelli · 2012-09-19 09:44 · Score: 1
  
  There are organizations who record essentially all the news, and have people catalog it and tag it etc., and have been doing this for a very long time. So if for example The Daily Show wants to do a bit where they show 50 different local news reporters reading the same phrase from some AP story they all ran, they just go to the news catalog people and say "give me all the clips from the last 2 days containing [whatever phrase]."
  There was a news story about the whole process a few days ago, but ironically I can't remember where I saw it and I don't have it recorded.
Yip-de-fucking-do. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-19 08:00 · Score: 0

All the lies of the past 3 years at your fingertips, just in case you needed another bedtime story.
oh the politicians will hate this by dirtaddshp · 2012-09-19 08:11 · Score: 1

oh the politicians will hate this, will make flip flopping a little harder.
Just what researchers have been waiting for... by 1zenerdiode · 2012-09-19 08:27 · Score: 1

Finally! An opportunity to definitively pin down exactly when the Hilton-to-Kardashian transition occurred.
The Archive of Bad Hair by swschrad · 2012-09-19 08:28 · Score: 1

and lame "over to you, Phil" handoffs.

--
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Who Funds The Archive by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-19 09:28 · Score: 0

Who funds the Internet Archive. Storage and electricity costs must be rather astonishing.
Bah. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-19 09:45 · Score: 0

20 "different" news channels, all American[tm]? How useless.
more important uses than this trivial election by PJ6 · 2012-09-19 09:53 · Score: 1

In addition to preserving the works of humankind, the archive is for helping citizens "better understand the issues and candidates in the 2012 U.S. elections by allowing them to search closed captioning transcripts to borrow relevant television news programs.
I would think it would be more important to use it to better understand the failings of the US mainstream media and its blind and relentless support of the two-party system.
Bruster Kahle by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-19 10:41 · Score: 0

through some mysterious "endowment"
The title is a bit misleading by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-19 11:20 · Score: 0

It is not all the news. It is mainly the news from a Democratic viewpoint. Mr. Khale is a donor to Democratic politicians including Obama. Jon Stewart is bltantly partisan and this Mr. Kahle considers him "news".
Missing some channels by Beetle+B. · 2012-09-19 17:06 · Score: 2

No Al-Jazeera English?
No BBC?
Really?

--
Beetle B.
1. Re:Missing some channels by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-20 00:24 · Score: 0
  
  ...and nothing of value was lost.
2. Re:Missing some channels by jhauser14905 · 2012-09-20 03:47 · Score: 1
  
  the reason why only american news sources were included in this first roll out is because the search function relies on indexing the closed captioning text.
  no cc == no text == not indexed == not included in search results.
  they're working on several different non-trivial approaches for broadcasts without closed captioning...
reply by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-19 18:03 · Score: 0

Shanghai Shunky Machinery Co.,ltd is a famous manufacturer of crushing and screening equipments in China. We provide our customers complete crushing plant, including cone crusher, jaw crusher, impact crusher, VSI sand making machine, mobile crusher and vibrating screen. What we provide is not just the high value-added products, but also the first class service team and problems solution suggestions. Our crushers are widely used in the fundamental construction projects. The complete crushing plants are exported to Russia, Mongolia, middle Asia, Africa and other regions around the world.
http://www.mcrushingplant.com
http://www.crusher007.com
http://www.sand-making-machine.com
http://www.china-impact-crusher.com
http://www.cnshunky.com
http://www.bestssj.com
http://www.shunkyen.com
http://www.crusheren.com
http://www.crusher02.com
http://www.portablecrusherplant.net
http://www.csconecrusher.com
No Russia Today, no Press TV, only captured media by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-19 22:29 · Score: 0

Sadly pretty much the whole list is ultimately governed by the same agenda (which isn't concerned with misleading distinctions between left and right, liberal or conservative). Not even Al Jazeera is included, who got captured only a few years ago. If this needs to be spelled out, these are the English versions which are aimed at the international/English speaking domains.
That's probably also the main reason why this isn't litigated into oblivion. Legal exceptions don't actually matter, don't think for a minute that there is any kind of rule of law these days. If it's ok by law but against our interests, we'll make your life hell in other ways. If it's against the law, we'll just change that retroactively, or if there is no significant public resistance, simply ignore it.
All news since 2009 by EmagGeek · 2012-09-19 23:17 · Score: 1

I have also compiled an archive of all actual produced journalistic news coverage since 2009.
I don't keep the uncompressed video for space reasons. I only have one 4GB Flash drive to keep the 9 minutes of actual journalism that has been put on TV in the last 3 years, and 9 minutes of uncompressed video might exceed that.
Comedy channel is NEWS???? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-20 02:06 · Score: 0

So the comedy channel is considered a news outlet. What a commentary on our times.
Re: After all, it is just old ____. by TaoPhoenix · 2012-09-20 05:09 · Score: 1

Naw, see this is why I have been griping that one Copyright Hand isn't talking to the other. I haven't checked the license details, but that's three years worth of x channels of news. That's a lot of data, and it's not that old, it's fairly current. So I'll check later, but the magic recipe here is "derivative works" which is your YouTube Mashups.
Compare that to the Music side where 24 song up to THIRTY YEARS OLD are worth $200,000 in sharing fees. See the problem? That's why my ex-gamer Combo Alarm is going off.

--
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine