News-Record.com

You think this is good?

First, the video is lame. Yes. Lame.

This video is the kind of video found on PBS -- and there is a reason PBS exists (other than to promote their Communist agenda). The reason is that this kind of video (on TV or the web) is not something that people will watch enough of to get advertisers to support.

Yes. You can produce video all day long, but when will you produce any that anyone wants to watch? (Hint: if the video is not something you would likely see anytime during a local 6 p.m. newscast, the chances are high that no one will want to watch it online)

Next, as if the subject matter and video itself weren't boring enough (head shot static interviews), the presentation is maddening.

I could never figure out that there were videos until I went back and read your blog post -- twice -- and then couldn't figure out where on the (guess what) separate page with no navigation or consistent look and feel (I might as well have landed at whatevertheheck.com instead of staying on the news & record's site) to click...

The scrolling stuff at the top of this slick "multimedia presentation" (just put the word boring in there, too... that is what "multimedia presentation" on a newspaper site might is code for) was video -- and it took me FOREVER to figure that out.

I kept clicking on other stuff around the black-background (ohhhh... ahhhhhh... wow... black background.. neato) screen to get that to do something -- and all it did was enlarge and give me one sentence. Sort of a caption to a photo -- I think.

The scrolling stuff at the top NEVER looked like it could even be video. (No video icon, no flimstrip thingies on the side that imply video..) It more looked like an ad or some sort of overview of the key players. Eventually I clicked on a couple but I never knew what I was going to get. Was it a video about what exactly? How long might it be? Who was talking? It was a mess...

Anyway, you could have saved yourself a TON of time -- and made the video more accessable and perhaps semiwatchable -- if you have LINKED it in relevant areas in the story.

That would make too much sense, however. And would not have been slick. And would not have taken weeks to do. Why not have a quote in the story and then put a link that says "see the video"??????????????????????

You are approaching video like you approach the news in the newspaper. You are overthinking the presentation and giving us non-compelling video of talking heads about subjects that are not new -- or interesting.

Give us video that makes sense to be video -- and make it easy to access.

Now, tell me everything I just said is wrong. Or, even better don't even read or respond. I am used to it both.

(By the way, the most compelling video possible of this subject -- a snoozer to start with-- would be of the two of these men meeting again (the agent and the informant)... did they? Is there video of that? Did you try to get them to meet again? Why not tease it that way? Geez.. and if they did meet again, that is the hook to get me to watch.. I have no idea if that is there anywhere....)

(Another problem with this as I have just gone back and tried to figure it all out for the FOURTH time: I have to watch an introductory video to get to the rest of it? Incredible!!! Somehow I made it around that three times today, but now just was forced to watch it to get to any of the "extras." When are you going to learn the web is about people controlling their intake of content HOW THEY WANT -- not having it shoved at them the way you decide?)

Wow. I'm not sure anything about this (other than the fact that the audio synchs with the video and is audible) was done right...

The previous writer probably should have taken the disclaimer, 'for mature audiences only' more seriously.

Excellent video and story. It really shows Fierson, the FBI -- not to mention the Klan -- for the dangerous, terrorist SOBs that they are.

However, the reporters should have vigorously challenged these two men's claims that the warm and cozy affiliation between the FBI and Klan kept violence down. The Klan is a violent, hateful terrorist organization by definition. It was that same tight relationship that led to the murder by the Klan of five labor organizers in Greensboro in 1979 -- which is just one example. The violence perpetrated by the Klan during the height of the Civil Rights Movement was channeled by the FBI to serve its purposes -- not curbed.

Small wonder then, that the FBI was able to dismantle the civil rights movement through assassinations, Cointelpro, etc. But the Klan remains active and many, many cold-blooded murderers have never been punished for their crimes.

It is also no coincidence that we can spend hundreds of billions of dollars, and spill the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and soldiers in the fruitless attempt to wipe out Muslim terrorism overseas, but the U.S.A. has never committed to destroy this Christian terrorist organization, that has created mayhem and terror and murdered and tortured American citizens on our own soil for centuries.

Pardon me, "Laura," but can you prove your statement that the Klan (or anyone, for that matter) committed the crime of MURDER on November 3, 1979?
I followed the trials when they were ongoing and don't recall a conviction for murder against anyone. Nor have I ever heard that any participants were convicted of murder. And the TRC mentioned nothing about anyone being convicted of murder in the incident.
So, given that you chose to lie about that, why should we give credibility to anything else you said?