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America’s First Regular Video Columnist

Watch the latest editions of “Dave’s Video Column” – http://www.youtube.com/watchdognation

In 1997, Dave launched America’s first regular video column at his home newspaper, www.star-telegram.com, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram in Texas.

In its third year, Dave’s Video Column won 2nd place at the National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ first online columnist contest in 2000. Dave was runnerup to a San Francisco cockroach who couldn’t type capital letters. No lie.

In journalism historian Sam. G. Riley’s 1998 book The American Newspaper Columnist, Riley credited columnist Dennis Rockstroh of the San Jose Mercury News and Dave as the pioneers of this format.

Dennis was America’s first known newspaper columnist who experimented with Web-based video columns for his newspaper’s Web site. Dennis dropped the project after several attempts.

At a gathering of the National Society of Newspaper columnists (www.columnists.com), Dave talked to Dennis about his experiment, became intrigued and, soon after, became America’s first regular Web-based video columnist.

Working for years alongside his original producer, computer guru Jim Boughton (http://polywebb.com/), Dave and Jim eventually realized that trying to stream videos through dial-up modems was too frustrating for viewers and a little ahead of its time. Dave and Jim put the video column on hiatus for several years. Now that broadband is more prevalent, watching videos on the Internet is much easier.

Along with the help of Fort Worth-based videographer and documentary filmmaker Chris Gommersall, www.star-telegram.com temporarily revived Dave’s Video Column in 2006. You can see those http://www.youtube.com/videocolumn.

Recently, as part of Dave's Watchdog Nation movement, WatchdogNation.com® began offering video columns that pertain to consumer rights. See them at http://www.youtube.com/watchdognation.